
BEAME/RS 

OF THE 

TORCH 

Katharine 'ft Growdll 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH 



Interdenominational 

Home Mission Study Courses 

SENIOR 

Paper covers, 35c; cloth, 57c. Postpaid. 

Under Our Flag. Alice M. Guernsey. 
The Call of the Waters. Katharine R. Crowell. 
From Darkness to Light. Mary Helm. 
Conservation of National Ideals. A Symposium. 
Mormonism, the Islam of America. Bruce Kinney. 
The New America. Mary Clark Barnes and Dr. L. C 

Barnes. 
America, God's Melting-Pot. Laura Gerould Craig. 
In Red Man's Land. Francis E. Leupp. 
Home Missions in Action. Edith H. Allen. 
Old Spain in New America. Robert McLean, D.D. 

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Missionary Milestones. Margaret E. Seebach. 

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Paper, 29c; cloth, 40c. Postpaid. 

Best Things in America. Katharine R. Crowell. 
Some Immigrant Neighbors. John R. Henry, D.D. 
Comrades From Other Lands. Leila Allen Dimock. 
GooDBiRD the Indian. Gilbert L. Wilson. 
All Along the Trail. Sarah Gertrude Pomeroy. 
Children of the Lighthouse. Charles L. White. 
Bearers of the Torch. Katharine R. Crowell. 





'The Door of & 
Million, Bibles" 
1 Bring Ycm Good Tidings oi Great Joy' 



raws? 



ju 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

By 
KATHARINE R. CROWELL 



"The Torch was the Word of 

God lighted by Martin Luther 

and caught from him by the 

whole world' 9 



COUNCIL of WOMEN for HOME MISSIONS 
600 LEXINGTON AVE., NEW YORK CITY 



Order from Denominational Headquarters 



•":* 



Copyright 1917 

Council of Women for Home Missions 

New York 



©CI.A462105 

APR 25 1917' 



CONTENTS 

At the Start — A Bunch of Boys of the Fifteenth Century. 
A glimpse of the opening mind of the world, as 
seen through the inventions and discoveries of 
Copernicus, Gutenburg, Columbus and others, all 
of them born in the fifteenth century. 

Page 13 

Chapter I. How the Torch Was Lighted. 

The story of Martin Luther, ending with his great 
work of translating the Bible, thus "lighting The 
Torch" for Germany and the world. 
Motto: "By faith." 

Page 21 

Chapter II. The Torch Passed On to America. 

The story of how the Wesleys and Whitefield re- 
kindled The Torch in Great Britain and America, 
and how the "Great Awakening" in the latter led 
to the work of Home Missions. 

Mottoes: John Wesley; "Make the most of life. 
Live to-day!" 
Whitefield ; "Nil desperandum, Christ 
Duce." 

Page 41 

Chapter III. Bearers of The Torch in the South. 

Introduced by the story of how the great need of 
the world at that time, the need of Bibles, was 
met by the "Little Maid of Wales," and the out- 
come of this in the southern mountains, and among 
the Negroes of the South. 
Motto: "Holding forth the Word of Life." 

Page 55 



Chapter IV. A Runner to New Mexico. 

Introductory story of the Spanish occupation of 
the Southwest, and its resultant darkening of the 
minds of the people ; the advent of missionaries in 
the person of Mrs. A. R. McFarland. 

Motto: "His commandment runneth very 
swiftly." 

Page 65 

Chapter V. A Bearer of The Torch to Cannibals. 

The story of how William Duncan carried the 
Glad Tidings to the Tsimshean Indians at Fort 
Simpson, and the work wrought by "God's Letter ,, 
in the Settlement at Metlakahtla, where Duncan's 
great gifts of musical and business ability were 
used to wonderful purpose. 

Motto: "This one thing I do." 

Page 81 

Chapter VI. A Bearer of The Torch in the West. 

The story of Sheldon Jackson, first as "the Kit 
Carson of Home Missions" and "the Wild Horse- 
man of the Rockies," preaching and establishing 
churches on the frontier ; secondly, as the Apostle 
to Alaska. 

In this chapter all the threads of the story are 
twisted into one Cord of Love. 

Motto: "He never hurries, but just persists." 

Page 97 

At the Finish — A Bunch of Boys — and Girls — of the 

Twentieth Century. 

A call to make the most of life by the devotion 

of all gifts and faculties and training to the highest 

ends ; to take "The Torch" and bear it on, and on. 

To be emphasized by all the "Mottoes" of the story. 

Page 109 



PICTURES 

Frontispiece — "The Door of a Million Bibles/^ 
— "I Bring you Good Tidings of Great Joy." 

"The printing press, the greatest machine ever 
devised for the extension of knowledge and 
liberty of mind" Page 14 1 

"Those hammer-strokes would ring down 
through the ages, the beginning of a new 
and wonderful life, for the whole world". . .Page 23 '-' 

"So was The Torch passed on to America" Page 50 > 

"Still must there be bearers of The Torch" Page $p J 

"The Torch, which is the Word of God, has been 
held high every day in every mission school" 

Page 75 ' 

"In 1887 the Metlakahtla Indians once more 
fared forth from their home and sought 
freedom to worship God" Page pi 

'Sheldon Jackson, the pioneer of the forces of 

good" Page pp - 



FOREWORD 
"THE BEARERS OF THE TORCH" 

WHEN a Scottish Chieftain in a sudden emer- 
gency wished to summon his clan for battle, he 
placed a blood-quenched cross in the hand of 
"his henchman brave," telling him to run with it swiftly 
and name to every clansman the time and place to meet 
his chief ; when he reached the next hamlet he must pass 
on the signal and message to the head man of that hamlet, 
who, snatching the symbol, must repeat the message to 
every man until he came to the next village ; and so the 
cross passed from hand to hand and in an incredibly short 
time every clansman had received the message. 

And so our Chieftain has commanded us to run swiftly 
with His message, telling "every creature" whatsoever 
He hath commanded us. 

The message of Roderick Dhu to his clansmen — 

"The muster-place is Lanrick mead — 
Instant the time — speed, clansman, speed!" 

was one of battle, hate and fear, but our Chieftain's com- 
mandment is that we love one another, and this is the 
Message : 

Behold 
I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be 
to all people, for unto you is born this day in the 
city of David 

A Saviour 
Who is Christ the Lord 
This Command and this Message have been carried 
swiftly by our 

Bearers of the Torch 



AT THE START 



Fierce may be the conflict, 

Strong may be the foe, 
But the King's own army 

None can overthrow; 
Round His standard ranging, 

Victory is secure; 
For His truth unchanging 

Makes the triumph sure. 
Joyfully enlisting 

By Thy grace divine, 
We are on the Lord's side, 

Saviour, we are Thine. 



AT THE START 
A Bunch of Boys of the Fifteenth Century 

NOT such a bad time, either, to be alive, for the 
fifteenth century arose upon a dark and ignorant 
and miserable world, where a tremendous amount 
of active and heroic work needed to be done. And then, 
as always where much is doing and needs to be done, it 
was glorious to be a boy with a chance to take hearty hold 
and help. 

And it is simply amazing — the great share this "bunch" 
were to have as they grew older in helping to make the 
world wiser and happier and better — even larger! 

The "Dark Ages" were going out as the fifteenth cen- 
tury came in. Not that the world was really dark. No, 
the sun, of course, arose in splendor, traveled its kingly 
course across the sky and set in glory, then as now, and 
the moon and stars lighted the night. It was the ignorant 
and untaught mind of the people that was so dark, hold- 
ing the queerest notions, and one of the queerest was that 
to hold any other than the notions they were used to was 
wrong. 

Is not that a strange idea, when the Bible plainly tells 
us that it is our duty to cultivate our minds, and when 
thinking for ourselves is the only way to make them 
grow? 

But, as you will see later, this* was just the trouble with 
the world at that time. The people did not know the 

13 



14 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Bible. Hardly any one could read — however, that did 
not matter so much while there were no books to be read ! 
We need not wonder at this, for the only way a book 
could be made was by the slow copying by hand of some- 
thing that had been first written long before — so long that 
the language in which it was written had almost died out 
of men's knowledge. 

Besides, up to this time there had been almost nothing 
to write on ! Perhaps a little prepared sheepskin or parch- 
ment might be found in the Scriptorium, or writing room 
of some monastery. (The monks — who were the minis- 
ters of those days — thought it was right to cut them- 
selves off from the duties, affections and temptations of 
ordinary life, and to live shut up in prison-like buildings 
called monasteries.) 

The Scriptorium seems to have been a rather pleasant 
place, with perhaps a half-dozen young men at work 
copying and illuminating manuscripts, so that we might 
call it the publishing house of the Middle Ages, represent- 
ing Houghton Mifflin, Macmillan, Revell, and all the 
rest! 

However, if there had been abundance of paper to write 
upon, what in those ignorant days could be written about ? 
And if there had been people with knowledge, who knew 
how to express their thoughts on paper, there was no 
clear language understood by the people in which books 
might be written. 

This was the condition of things when the fifteenth cen- 
tury came in — no easily understood language, no knowl- 
edge to speak of, no paper to write upon, no quick and 
easy way to make a book ; and — would you believe it ? — in 
our bunch of boys there were those who, when they be- 
came men, would supply every one of these great needs ! 




~~~ 1 1 1 *i*"** * *~nr '" ' — »» >i- ' • " 



91 




'The-pfrintin^ press, the greatest machine 
eve* devised for the extension of 
knowledge and liberty of mind" 






ii i ■ i ii ii- l n i 



AT THE START 15 

And as to those queer notions — our courageous boys 
lived long enough to prove how foolish some of them 
were. 

One strange belief that had been held for hundreds of 
years was that our earth was a fixed, immovable body in 
the, center of the great universe, and that the heavens 
revolved around it once in twenty-four hours. 

People thought the sky was a great solid vault, turning 
around on a mighty axis which somehow fitted into fixed 
sockets, and that the stars were attached to the surface of 
the vault by nails or other wonderful fastening! 

Just at the time that more knowledge of the stars be- 
came necessary a baby was born in Poland, one of our 
"bunch," who was named Nicholas. A hard life he had 
as a boy, for his parents were very poor; it is even 
thought that they were slaves, or serfs. 

But Nicholas was born to better things than money, 
namely, to brains, the power to use them, and a kind and 
pitiful heart. 

He became a doctor and a priest, and devoted himself 
to the sick and suffering, to preaching, and to the study 
of astronomy. His clear mind soon saw that something 
was wrong in that idea people had about the sky and the 
stars. Night after night he would sit in a tower, watch- 
ing the silent stars, and thinking — always thinking. 

He saw that the sun did not move around the earth ; on 
the contrary, the earth and other planets went around the 
sun. But it was terribly dangerous in those days to 
think such thoughts, and Nicholas Copernicus knew well 
the risks he ran. He wrote a book to prove his theory, 
yet feared to give it to the world. 

At last he dared to do it ; but on the very day he re- 
ceived the first printed copy of his book, Copernicus died. 



16 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Printed copy, did I say? Yes, for others of our boys 
had also been thinking to some purpose. 

People's minds were surely waking up from their long 
sleep ! Things happened thick and fast in that great fif- 
teenth century, and one happening led to another in the 
most wonderful way. 

One of our boys saw that more books were needed. As 
he grew up he put his brains to work on the question of 
writing material. This, indeed, was a hard nut to crack. 

For hundreds and hundreds of years a kind of paper 
had been made in Egypt from a plant called papyrus. 

Perhaps our boy had seen some of this paper. Any- 
way he saw that material to write on might be made from 
substances whose fibres could be boiled to a pulp, and he 
began to experiment with linen rags. At last he was suc- 
cessful in showing that paper could be made from such 
rags, and before long paper mills were at work. 

Just think a moment what a difference such a discovery 
would make in what had been almost a bookless world ! 

A short time after this discovery a wonderful thing 
happened — nothing less than the pouring into Europe (by 
the way, all our boys lived in Europe) of a flood of 
knowledge, which for hundreds of years had been shut up 
in Constantinople, a Greek city of eastern Europe. Just 
about the time that one of our boys invented a splendid 
thing, about which I will tell you in a moment, this city 
was captured by Turks, and many learned men fled from 
it to western Europe, taking their precious books with 
them. Now, knowledge began to spread, and many 
scholars wanted copies of these rare books. 

But copying books by hand cost a small fortune, and 
was, besides, fearfully slow work. 



AT THE START 17 

Before the great invention which was to "change the 
world" had been thought out something had been known 
of printing, that is, pages had been printed from letters 
cut into a block of wood — wood-cuts, and very poor ones, 
as we would think now. 

Of course, books could not be printed from wooden 
blocks in this way — what was needed were small metal 
letters that might be set up and printed from many times, 
then distributed and used over and over again. It took 
a bright young man to think of this plan and carry it out, 
and just such an alert fifteenth century boy had grown 
old enough to think of and carry out such a splendid in- 
vention — the printing press, the greatest machine ever 
devised for the extension of knowledge and liberty of 
mind. The inventor was one of our oldest boys, for he 
was born at Mainz, Germany, very early in the fifteenth 
century ; some people say in its very first year. 

You perhaps do not need to be told that this boy's name 
was John Gutenburg, or that the first book printed on his 
press was the Bible, printed in Latin. It was our 
youngest boy who would some day translate it into the 
language of the people. 

However, we have not come to him yet. There is an- 
other boy of this wonderful century, born in Genoa, who 
became a great sailor, whom we must think of now. 

We were speaking a while ago of queer notions — stars 
being nailed to the sky-ceiling of our earth was one of 
them. 

Another was that the earth was flat, and surrounded on 
all sides by oceans filled with the most terrifying and 
blood-curdling, ghostly creatures. Woe to the sailor who 
ventured too far out from the friendly land! 



18 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

This boy of Genoa — when he was grown up — did ven- 
ture into the very worst of all the oceans — so unknown 
and frightful that it was called The Sea of Darkness; 
and you all know, of course, who this boy was and what 
happened when he sailed "On ! and On ! and On !" 

So you see one of our fifteenth century "bunch" helped 
to change our world, and another gave us a new one! 
Still another opened to us the world of the stars and an- 
other, the baby of the bunch — he was only nine years old 
when Columbus discovered America — put into men's 
hands the knowledge of the Creator and Redeemer of the 
heavens and the earth. 

Taking them all together, we owe to them almost a new 
heaven and a new earth. 

Yet after all, they were, at the start, just boys. 

Rather a great thing, this being a boy, is it not ? 



I 

HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 



A mighty fortress is our God, 
A bulwark never failing; 
Our Helper He, amid the flood 
Of mortal ills prevailing. 
For still our ancient foe 
Doth seek to work his woe; 
His craft and power are great, 
And, arm'd with cruel hate, 
On earth is not his equal. 

Did we in our own strength confide, 
Our striving would be losing; 
Were not the right man on our side. 
The man of God's own choosing. 
Dost ask who that may be? 
Christ Jesus, it is He; 
Lord Sabaoth is His name, 
From age to age the same, 
And He must win the battle. 

That word above all earthly powers, 
No thanks to them, abideth; 
The Spirit and the gifts are ours 
Thro' Him who with us sideth. 
Let goods and kindred go, 
This mortal life also; 
The body they may kill; 
God's truth abideth still, 
His Kingdom is forever. 

— Martin Luther. 



I 

HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 

SOMETHING unusual must have been going on on 
a certain crisp autumn day in the little town of 
Jiiterbok, near the borders of Saxony and the town 
of Wittenberg. One could feel excitement in the very 
air, and on all the roads leading to the town, at other 
times quite deserted and lonely, were streams of people, 
some on horseback, or in clumsy, springless wagons or 
creaking ox-carts, but many more on foot, and carrying 
with them provisions for the journey. 

Once in the town, it were easy to find the great attrac- 
tion, simply by following the crowd to the market place 
in front of the church, where was great bustle and much 
eager talking. In front of the church door had been 
placed a pulpit, and very near it was a heavy money chest, 
securely fastened by several padlocks. 

The great bell of the church began to boom and all talk 
stopped, for there was the sound of many voices singing, 
and advancing towards the church was a long procession, 
priests, altar boys swinging smoking censers, and the mag- 
istrates of the town followed by many brotherhoods carry- 
ing gay banners; then the crowd seemed almost to hold 
its breath when a young monk appeared bearing a purple 
velvet cushion, on which rested a parchment, and, follow- 
ing him, a monk carrying a large red cross. Behind him 
walked the man — John Tetzel — commissioned by the 

21 



22 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Pope to give pardons for sin — indulgences they were 
called — in return for a confession, and a certain sum of 
money — the worse the sin the more money required. 

The procession streamed into the church, but the Pope's 
commissioner quickly reappeared and took his stand on 
the pulpit by the money chest, while on the steps were 
placed tables, with quill pens and heavy leaden inkwells. 
Clerks seated themselves before the tables, and Master 
Tetzel in a great voice which could be heard to the 
farthest edge of the market place began to preach to the 
people, urging them to purchase the certificates of pardon 
which he was selling in the name of the Pope. The money 
would be used, so the speaker said, in building the Church 
of St. Peter at Rome. 

Many a man had a heavy load of sin on his conscience, 
and though he could ill afford it — for the people were 
very poor — he was glad to pay to be rid of the fear of 
punishment; so the clerks at the tables were kept busy 
signing certificates, and the money paid poured steadily 
into the chest. 

Poor deceived people! A few perhaps were not so 
ignorant, but it would be a brave man who, in those days, 
would dare to speak against the Pope. 

There was a man who knew and who was not afraid. 

Listen, now, to a German lad as he tells what this man 
did. 

"Grandmother !" exclaimed Rudolf, as he hurried into 
the house for his dinner of black bread and sausage. "I 
have been with Dr. Luther today. Master sent me to the 
Augustinian Convent to get some papers to be printed. 
Dr. Luther was not there; he had just gone, they said, to 
the Castle Church, taking some papers with him. So I 
ran to the church and got there first, and there was Dr. 





';\ "Those hammer-strokes would ring, down 
, ? I through ike a£es, the Ijefiwunfc of a new 
£J and -wonderful life for the whole world*' I 1 



I — 





-K4t*<*3!Mfc 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 23 

Luther coming up College street. He walked just like a 
soldier, Grandmother ; his head was thrown back and he 
looked as if he were marching to a battle. And he did 
have the papers, a thick roll of them, covered with large 
black writing, and in his other hand he carried a big 
hammer." 

"The papers are nothing new," said Grandmother. 
"Dr. Martin is always writing. But why should he carry 
a hammer?" 

"That is what I thought," said Rudolf, "and I soon had 
a chance to see why, for Dr. Martin went to the door of 
the church and started to nail the papers to it, but his 
cassock blew all about him and the papers flapped and 
slapped in the wind, so I took off my cap and bowed low 
and asked if I might hold down the papers. Dr. Martin 
smiled — you know, Grandmother, how kind-looking his 
eyes are — and thanked me for my help, and then I tell 
you, he drove the nails home! Why! I could hear the 
great blows of the hammer through all the howling and 
shrieking of the wind. When every corner was firmly 
fastened, Dr. Luther told me to come back to the convent 
with him, and he gave me copies of the papers, and our 
press will clang all night, getting them printed." 

Rudolf finished his dinner and hurried back to his work 
at the printing press — a boy dared not be late in those 
days — and neither he nor his grandmother ever dreamed 
that those hammer-strokes would ring down through the 
ages, nor that the large black writing nailed to the church 
door on that windy thirty-first of October, 1517, was the 
beginning of a new and wonderful life for the whole 
world — The Reformation, the beginning of what may be 
called the spark that should later kindle The Torch 
which was to pass from hand to hand, to the east and 



24 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

west, to the north and the south, until at length the whole 
earth shall be filled with knowledge of its message. 

Perhaps you are thinking that you do not know this 
man with the marching step and the wonderful eyes, who 
on that windy day nailed the flapping papers to the door 
of the Castle Church at Wittenberg. 

Ah, but you do ! At least, you saw him in that bunch 
of boys of the fifteenth century. Martin Luther, the 
youngest of all, and, as it turned out, the greatest! 

He was the kind of boy you like. Do you know a boy 
who has a wonderful voice, clear and true, and who loves 
to sing? Who has a clear brain and stands high in his 
classes, and a warm heart which feels for everybody; 
who is honorable and true and who always defends the 
weak; who has a tremendous power of will, and when 
he does a thing does it v/ith all his might; who also is 
full of fun and jollity? 

If you know such a boy you surely admire and love 
him, and so if you had known Martin Luther you would 
have admired and loved him, for he was just that kind 
of fellow ! 

They were hard days, though, for a boy to grow up in, 
for fathers and teachers and masters were terribly strict, 
thinking it right to flog a child most severely for the very 
smallest fault, or wrong doing. 

Martin's father felt that way and often beat his little 
son until the blood came ; yet he loved Martin, and denied 
himself everything, in order to pay for the boy's school- 
ing, for he was a miner and very poor. 

Martin was a fine student and studied hard, yet — to 
say nothing of his father's beatings, he was once flogged 
by the schoolmaster fifteen times in one day! 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 25 

It was not in those days that he was full of fun and 
jollity. No, indeed; a half-starved and brutally treated 
little lad he was then, who had to beg his daily bread 
from door to door. 

It is not quite true though to say that he begged his 
food, for he certainly gave something in return by sing- 
ing carols in his clear, true voice, and this carol-singing 
so pleased a kind, and well-to-do woman, who listened to 
him one day, that she filled Martin's bag with good food ; 
and when next she heard the high, sweet tones, she asked 
him to come and live in her house, and there under the 
influence of her cheeriness, and her kind heart, Martin's 
life seemed fairly to blossom out, and he became very 
popular with the boys and girls of his acquaintance as 
well as with older people. 

Not one of those boys and girls — not Martin Luther 
himself — had ever seen a Bible, and even if they had, they 
would have had to know Latin or Greek to read it, for 
it had not then been translated into German. 

Put yourself in Martin's place for a minute. Suppose 
you had never seen a Bible — in your home, in a book- 
store, not even in church (there were many, many 
churches in Germany). Try to think how it would be, if 
you had never read or heard the whole story of the life 
of Jesus Christ upon earth, or that He alone had power 
to take away sin and help us to live pure and brave and 
loving lives — that you had been taught to buy pardon for 
sin, and to pray to men and women called "saints," but 
who in their lifetime had sinned just as you do. 

Well, that was the way it was with Martin Luther, and 
it is not all the truth to say that the beginning of the 
Reformation in Germany was that windy day when the 
theses — as they are called — were nailed to the church 
door! 



26 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

No ! it rather began on the day Martin Luther, while 
still a student, found in the library of his University an 
old copy of a Latin Bible, for it was the light that flooded 
his mind and heart in the study of that Bible that made it 
clear to him that the Pope had no power to forgive sins. 

And this is what the hammer strokes and the "big, 
black letters," rang out that day ! 

In his manhood Dr. Luther wrote other things too, 
which were as good news from a far country, and we 
ourselves owe a great deal to the clanging printing presses 
and beyond them to that great boy of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, John Gutenburg; "glorious Johannes, what a debt 
to thee and thy printer's art, owe all who love truth, jus- 
tice and the freeing of the human soul." His presses 
scattered the good tidings "as though an angel carried 
them," as an old chronicler said, far and wide over 
Germany. 

Remember there were no newspapers, nor "wireless," 
nor railroads, nor express companies, nor parcels post in 
those days ; but there were merchants sending their mer- 
chandise from one rich and rising German city to another, 
and every bale carried also Luther's books, reaching and 
read by thousands of persons in the great cities. There 
were peddlers, too, of all sorts of things ; into their packs 
were slipped Luther's pamphlets and in many a lonely 
farmhouse and castle groups of men and women gathered 
to hear them read. 

And not books and pamphlets only. Luther wrote, also, 
many hymns, telling clearly and beautifully and in Ger- 
man words, the new-found truths of the Bible, and set 
them to simple music which the people could sing; and 
soon Luther's hymns were loved and sung all over Ger- 
many, as they are — not only in Germany but in all Chris- 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 27 

tendom — until this day, "as though," indeed, "angels 
carried them." 

For thus denying the power of the Church of Rome 
and of the Pope, Martin Luther was called a "heretic," 
and the Pope ordered his books to be burned in the mar- 
ketplace of many a city of Germany. 

But even as the smoke arose from their burning the 
presses clanged, printing books faster than they were 
burned, for the greater the burnings the greater the de- 
mand for them. 

Then came something even worse than the burning of 
the books — the Pope's "Bull of Excommunication" as it 
was called. This was in those days a terrible thing and 
would have frightened a less brave man than Martin 
Luther, for it cut him off from the Church, which he still 
loved, and was supposed also to shut him out of heaven 
when he should die. 

But Martin Luther trusted in the Word of God and 
the word of the Pope had therefore no terrors for him. 
When the great parchment roll containing the Bull of 
Excommunication, signed by the Pope of all Christen- 
dom, was brought to him in his study at the Convent at 
Wittenberg late one afternoon, and his friends stood 
silent about him in sorrow and distress, what did they 
hear? 

Dr. Luther stood very firm and straight, lifted in his 
hand his Bible and said: "Let me say the forty-sixth 
Psalm," and then in the twilight, without opening the 
book, he recited in Latin, and if you have ever heard the 
reading of Latin poetry you will know how majestic 
sounded the forty-sixth Psalm as Dr. Luther's rich and 
beautiful voice rolled it forth. 

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in 
trouble. 



28 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be re- 
moved and the mountains be carried into the midst of the 
sea. 

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled: 
though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. 

The waters raged, the kingdoms were moved: He 
uttered his voice, the earth melted. 

Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted 
among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. 

The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is 
our refuge. 

Let the Wittenberg lad, Rudolf, tell what was done 
with the Pope's Bull : 

"Grandmother," Rudolf said one day at dinner, "I saw 
a great sight today. Yesterday some students from the 
University told Master that there would be a goodly bon- 
fire this forenoon — such as Wittenberg has never seen, 
they said — outside the walls by the Elster Gate. 'Dr. 
Luther will be there and there will be a merry blaze/ said 
they, and then went on their way singing a college song. 

"I saw that Master grew very pale. (He and Dr. 
Luther are great friends, you know), and I heard him 
mutter, 'What a flame will Dr. Martin kindle to-morrow ! 
It's a brave deed ; no braver was ever done. Well/ and 
he drew a long breath, 'only God knows what shall come 
of it. But I am with Friar Martin — for life or for death.' 

"Then he told us all to go to the Elster Gate early this 
morning to see a sight which we would remember all our 
lives. As soon as it was over we must come straight back 
to work, for there would be much to keep the presses 
busy. 

"So, early this morning — Ach! how damp and cold it 
was, heavy mists were rolling in from the Elbe, so that I 
could see only the towers of the Castle Church and the 
Parish Church — we all hastened out to that little chapel 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 29 

just outside the Elster Gate. You know where it is, don't 
you Grandmother ?" 

"Yes, I know," said Grandmother, "and the pesthouse 
is near by. It was there your father and mother died of 
the plague, Rudolf." 

"I know, Grandmother," said Rudolf, "and there in the 
open space before the pesthouse the university students 
had heaped a great pile of dry wood and had soaked it 
well with pitch." 

"What was it all for ?" asked his grandmother. 

"I did not know then," said Rudolf. "We stood, all of 
us, in a circle around the pile of wood, waiting. 

"All at once there was a great stir and excitement. 
Some one said, 'There he comes!' and there was a pro- 
cession of professors and doctors from the university, 
the crowd opening to let them through. They marched 
to the pile, Dr. Luther first, carrying in his arms a load 
of books which he cast on the pile (Master told me 
afterwards, Grandmother, that these books had made 
people forget the Word of God, and that was the reason 
Dr. Luther burned them). 

"One of the professors threw a blazing fire brand far 
into the pile of pitch-soaked wood, which instantly caught 
and the flames soared high. Such a crackling and blazing, 
Grandmother ! Such a mighty bonfire I never saw ! Yet 
there was no shouting nor jeering. It was as still as 
death except for the hissing and crackling and roaring 
as the flames mounted higher and higher, when Dr. 
Luther came forward again, and taking from under his 
robe a roll of parchment he held it high so all might see 
the coat of arms and the Pope's great seal — then he 
flung it far into the midst of the roaring flames. As 
the parchment burned fiercely Dr. Martin said some- 



30 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

thing. I could not understand the words, but his deep, 
full, steady voice was splendid, Grandmother ! Then he 
turned away, wrapped his cassock about him and went 
back quietly, with his friends, to the Convent." 

Rudolf looked at his grandmother. She was as white 
as a sheet of paper and trembling from head to foot. 

"What was the scroll, Grandmother, that Dr. Luther 
burned?" he asked fearfully. "Do you know? and why 
are you frightened V 

"Yes, lad," whispered his grandmother. "I know and all 
Germany will know. It was a terrible thing — but a brave 
deed and holy, lad — that Dr. Luther did this day ! 

"Just one man, and he the son of a poor miner, has 
dared to scorn all the power of the Pope and the Em- 
peror. For this they call our Dr. Martin a heretic and 
the punishment, lad, for heresy, is to be burned to death." 

"Grandmother!" gasped Rudolf in horror. "To be 
burned to death — our kind Dr. Martin? Why, Grand- 
mother, there is not a boy or girl in Wittenberg who 
does not love him! Such beautiful stories he tells us; 
such kind looks he gives us !" 

"No, nor a man or woman," answered Grandmother, 
while tears rolled down her cheeks. "Scarcely a man or 
woman in all Germany but loves him and blesses him 
for what he has told us of the love of God. Aye, many 
there are who would even die for him." 

"Grandmother," said Rudolf, "Dr. Martin says that 
we may pray to the Lord Christ himself, that He loves 
us and will answer our prayers." 

"Yes, lad," said Grandmother, "and we will pray. All 
you boys and girls must pray to the Lord Christ that 
our Dr. Martin may be saved from the burning." 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 31 

It was true, as Grandmother said, excommunication 
by the Pope was not all that might be done to punish 
one who had been pronounced a heretic. There was an- 
other thing. He could be summoned to appear before a 
great council to take back all he had said or written ; if 
he refused to "recant," as this taking back was called, 
the Pope had power to condemn him to be burned to 
death. 

And all this Martin Luther knew right well, yet never 
did he falter in the path of truth. 

And so it came to pass. 

In January, 1521, not long after the burning of the 
Pope's "Bull of Excommunication," there was a great 
gathering of the Diet* of the Empire at the city of 
Worms. The Emperor and all his lords and councillors 
were present. To it came also, from Italy, ambassadors 
from the Pope, with a great and magnificent following of 
cardinals and nobles. 

Soon, there came to the quiet convent in Wittenberg, 
the Emperor's messenger bringing a summons for Dr. 
Martin Luther to appear before the Diet, to answer to 
the Emperor and the Diet for his books and his teachings. 

That which had been dreaded had come to pass, and 
some of Dr. Luther's friends were frightened. Not so 
Dr. Martin ! 

"What will you do, Dr. Luther?" hesitatingly asked 
one of his friends. 

"What will I do?" said Luther, "I will go." 

There was not much time for getting ready, for the 
summons required Luther to be present at Worms on 
the sixteenth of April. Friends in Wittenberg gladly 
provided a covered wagon and good horses for the 
journey. 

*The great Council of the Empire. 



32 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

They set out, Luther and three companions, on April 
2, 1521, a sad day for Wittenberg, whose people gathered 
in the streets for a last look at their beloved friend 
whose face they might never see again. 

The lad Rudolf was there, and so were many another 
boy and girl who loved the kind friar who had often 
given them hearty words of greeting and counsel. 

Rudolf and his grandmother waited long in a corner 
outside the convent garden. In the garden waited also 
the professors of the university, the chief men of Witten- 
berg, and many students. 

At last Dr. Luther came down from his study. His 
step was firm, his face calm, and his wonderful, deep 
eyes were calm also, and clear. 

Beside him was his dearest friend and helper, Phillip 
Melanchthon (about whom, if this story could be longer, 
there would be a great deal to tell), who silently wrung 
his hand. 

There was perfect silence, a great hush over the 
crowd, who hoped Dr. Luther would say something, and 
he did : 

"They have torn in pieces my honor and my good 
name. Only my poor body is left. He who is resolved 
to bear the Word of Christ to the world must expect 
death every hour. Therefore, I am well prepared." 

Then Rudolf saw him take his cap from his head and 
bow right and left to the people. 

"Christ keep us all," he said, "good Christian neigh- 
bors and brothers of Wittenberg, and bring us safe to 
heaven. And now — farewell!" 

Then Rudolf watched eagerly. They started off, a 
nobleman and some of his servants on horseback riding 
behind the wagon as a guard. In front of all rode the 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 33 

Emperor's messenger who had brought the summons, 
his bright livery flashing and in his hand the red, black 
and gold banner of the Emperor. 

They went on in silence. But Rudolf's old grand- 
mother could stand it no longer, and suddenly she started 
out from the crowd crying in great grief : 

"They are taking away the dear Dr. Martin! Dr. 
Martin, who taught my lads and maids how to live! 
They will burn him! They will burn him! We shall 
never see him more !" 

Some one pulled her back roughly, but as the wagon 
rolled by, Dr. Luther said in his clear, beautiful voice, 
"God bless you, good grandmother," and as Rudolf 
looked he saw that Dr. Martin's cheeks were wet with 
tears. 



So began the journey, and all along the way people of 
every kind, high and low, rich and poor, ran — as a 
chronicler of the time said — "to gaze upon the wonder- 
ful man who was so bold as to set himself against the 
Pope and all who in opposition to Christ look upon the 
Pope as a god." 

Yet, although Martin Luther was the hero of Germany, 
every day the danger grew. At Wiemar, while dining at 
an inn, a herald brought the news that the Emperor had 
ordered the burning of Luther's books all through 
Germany. 

"Now, Herr Doctor," he said, "will you go on to 
Worms?" 

"Yes," said Luther quietly, without change of color. 

"The man rides to his death," said one of those with 
him. "The Emperor is surely against him." 



34 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Nevertheless, the horses were reharnessed and Dr. 
Luther was the first to climb into the wagon. They 
traveled on and at length on the 15th day of April the 
Rhine had been crossed and they were but one day's 
ride from Worms. 

Here came a warning of danger that might make the 
bravest heart quake, and Luther was advised to take 
refuge in a strong castle belonging to a warm friend, a 
great noble with many soldiers at his command. 

"Von Sickengen is a great noble," said Dr. Martin. 
"I thank him for this offer. As for me, though there be 
as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the 
housetops, yet will I go there. Drive onward." 

And so it came to pass on the next day — a lovely 
spring day when all the buds were bursting and the trees 
putting forth their leaves, and the larks were singing far 
up in the clear blue sky — that about noon the trumpeter 
above the gate blew loudly on his horn — signal to all the 
crowded city that Friar Martin had come to face his 
fate. As the little cavalcade rode into the city, thou- 
sands of people poured forth from the houses into the 
street to see him. 

It seemed that all the world, as it was then known, had 
come together for this gathering, and everybody, high 
and low, was trying to get a glimpse of Martin Luther, 
whether he called him a saint or a heretic ! 

The day came at last — the great day looked forward 
to by millions throughout Germany — April 18, 1521. 
Millions, too, were asking this question : 

'Will the friar, the peasants son, recant "before the 
princes, bishops and Emperor, or will he stand fast?" 

It was a mighty and gorgeous assemblage before which 
appeared Martin Luther, escorted to the door of the 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 35 

great hall by many scarlet-coated soldiers, but walking 
alone to the dais, where he was told to answer plainly 
whether he stood by the contents of his books or whether 
he was ready to recant them. 

As that great assemblage, Emperor, archdukes, lords 
and bishops waited for the answer, the hall was so still 
one might hear a pin drop. 

And then he spoke, the peasant's son spoke, and he was 
as calm and deliberate as when speaking to his students 
at Wittenberg. 

Through his clear voice rang strength and sweetness, 
as he spoke first in Latin and then was told to repeat his 
words in German, so those might understand who could 
not follow the Latin. 

Finally the question was put : 

"Will you, or will you not, recant?" 

And down the hall bore Luther's voice as one who has 
described it says, "not shrill, not shouting, simply deep 
with the depths of the mighty spirit within/' 

"Since your Majesty and your Lordships," he said, 
"ask for a plain answer, I will give it, and here it is: 
Unless I am convinced by Scripture or by plain reason, 
seeing that Popes and Councils have often erred and 
contradicted God's word, I cannot recant. I neither will 
nor can recant anything, because it is neither safe nor 
right to act against one's conscience. For my conscience 
is caught in the Word of God." 

Then he threw out his arms and cried : 

"Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. 
Amen!" 

Then there was wild excitement, and a multitude 
swirled around Luther and almost bore him off his feet, 
but his friends among the high nobles surrounded him 



36 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

and got him out of the great hall. Italians and Spaniards 
tried to get near, their angry eyes flashing, crying, "To 
the Fire! To the Fire! Burn the heretic!" But the 
German nobles closed about him as a guard of honor and 
took him safely back to his lodgings in the house of the 
Knights of St. John, the hero of Germany, who had 
braved every peril. Where others, even the wise and 
noble, would have recanted, he had refused. Where the 
bravest might have faltered, he had stood steadfast. "He 
had been true to himself, in face of the scorn and 
thunder and fury of nearly all the great ones of the 
world, and he was enshrined forever in the hearts of 
Germany." 



A few days later the wagon and horses were made 
ready, and Dr. Luther and his companions started on the 
long journey back to Wittenberg. It was an anxious 
time to his friends, for they knew his life was in danger. 
Let us learn from Rudolf what happened on the way, 
for of all places the printing house was the best to hear 
news. 

"There is something wrong with Master today," said 
Rudolf, as he came in at noon for his dinner. "Nothing 
goes right somehow, and all the morning professors and 
doctors from the university have been coming in to talk 
with Master. You see, Grandmother, it is more than 
time for Dr. Martin to be back from Worms, and this, 
I think, is what is the matter." 

"Aye," said Grandmother, "they have good reason to 
be anxious. There is many a man from Rome who 
would be glad to kill Dr. Luther. But woe, woe be to 
any one who does harm to the Lord's anointed !" 



HOW THE TORCH WAS LIGHTED 37 

"You remember, Grandmother," Rudolf said, "what 
Dr. Luther said the day he went away. 'He who is re- 
solved to bear the word of Christ to the world must 
expect death every hour/ " 

"Yes, lad," said Grandmother, "I mind it well. May 
the Lord Christ guard and keep him ! But hurry back, 
lad, to your work, you are late enough now." 

So Rudolf hastened away, and even as he went quickly 
through the street he knew that something must have 
happened, there were so many people hurrying toward 
the printing house. 

And when he got there he learned what it was, and 
ran quickly back home. 

"Grandmother!" he called. "Grandmother!" "They 
cannot find Dr. Luther ! Master says he has disappeared 
and no' one knows where he is, and every one has a 
different story. Some say he has been killed, but one 
man told Master that the horses and wagon have been 
found and the man who was driving said they had been 
stopped on the road by some armed men and Dr. Luther 
had been dragged out and carried off — and they don't 
know, Grandmother, whether Dr. Martin is dead or 
alive." Sobs choked poor Rudolf, and he broke down 
utterly. 

As it was in Wittenberg, so was it all over Germany. 
No one knew whether Dr. Martin Luther was alive or 
dead, and all hearts were sad because of it. But we, 
living long afterwards — nearly four hundred years after- 
wards — may know well what happened that day. 

It was true that Dr. Luther had been taken from his 
wagon and made a prisoner, but it was by friends and not 
by foes, and the "prison" to which they took him was 
the great fortress of the Wartburg in the Thuringian 



38 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Forest, belonging to his powerful friend, Prince Fred- 
erick of Saxony, "the knight of the pure heart," and 
there in the disguise of a knight, he lived for more than 
a year. 

And what did he do in the Wartburg? Can you not 
think? 

He translated the Bible into German, so that all might 
read and understand, and so Martin Luther lighted The 
Torch — for "The Torch" is the Word of God. 



By the Word the world has been subdued, by the 
Word the Church has been upheld, and by the Word it 
will be reformed. — Martin Luther. 






II 

THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA 



JESUS! LOVER OF MY SOUL 

Jesus! Lover of my soul 

Let me to Thy bosom fly; 
While the nearer waters roll, 

While the tempest still is high. 
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, 

Till the storm of life is past; 
Safe into the haven guide, 

O receive my soul at last! 

Other refuge have I none; 

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; 
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, 

Still support and comfort me! 
All my trust on Thee is stayed, 

All my help from Thee I bring; 
Cover my defenseless head 

With the shadow of Thy wing. 

Plenteous grace with Thee is found, 

Grace to cover all my sin; 
Let the healing streams abound, 

Make and keep me pure within. 
Thou of life the Fountain art, 

Freely let me take of Thee; 
Spring Thou up within my heart, 

Rise, to all eternity! 



— Charles Wesley. 



II. 

THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA. 

NEARLY two hundred years had passed since Mar- 
tin Luther, confined in the castle of the Wartburg, 
had lighted The Torch for Germany, when there 
were born in England three boys — "just boys" — who 
would be, when grown to young manhood, "Bearers of 
The Torch" in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and 
America, doing a work for the happiness and betterment 
of the world so great and splendid that it is impossible to 
measure or compute it. Brave work it was, too, fearlessly 
carried on against much opposition from the higher 
classes, and fierce mobs of the lowest and most brutal 
people of England, so neglected and ignorant that many 
of them seemed more like brutes than men. 

You will agree with me that it took some courage to 
face great crowds of such people, armed with clubs and 
stones and furiously angry, yet they did calmly face such 
mobs — these heroes of this chapter. 

Suppose we put on our long distance glasses and take a 
look backward to the Epworth Parsonage, where two of 
those boys were born, and see what we shall see. 

A group of boys and girls seem to be taking their 
places in the schoolroom. 

"Nothing," you say, "so very remarkable about that!" 

41 



42 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH 



But for those days it was very remarkable. Hardly 
another mother than theirs would have thought of such 
a thing as providing a good education for girls! Cer- 
tainly not, if they had as little money as Parson Wesley, 
who lived upon a very small salary. Heaven and earth 
might be moved in order that the boys should go to 
boarding school, and even to college, but the girls — Mrs. 
Wesley knew they would never have an education, un- 
less she, herself, taught them. And so she did ; beginning 
when the oldest child was five years old, she taught the 
children — boys and girls — six hours a day for twenty 
years. 

The group we caught a glimpse of were all the children 
of Parson Wesley and their beautiful teacher was their 
mother. 

You must have noticed in that glance into the school- 
room that the boys and girls — strong and brainy-looking 
— were cheerful and happy but very quiet. 

Indeed they were quiet and well-behaved, for strict 
discipline was maintained, I can tell you, in the Epworth 
Parsonage ! 

Mrs. Wesley was one of twenty-five brothers and 
sisters and had herself nineteen children; naturally, she 
had discovered that much more pleasure and profit could 
be gained from life if certain rules were laid down. 

These rules were very seldom broken, for each child 
was early taught to understand that the rod would surely 
be used, and to some purpose, should any law of the 
parsonage be disobeyed. 

I am sure none of you ever saw such a household. 
Everything was done by rule and method, the children 
went to sleep by rule and awoke by rule. Every waking 
minute was planned out for them. There was a time to 



THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA 43 

dress, and a time to eat, and at the table each child must 
do exactly so and so, partaking quietly of whatever was 
set before him — or her. He might not even pleasantly 
refuse it ; it must be eaten ; also each one was taught to 
ask a blessing on its food, even the babies before they 
could walk or talk must go through the motions ! And 
so it was all through the day, certain times to work, to 
play, to study, to sew, to work in the garden — where, by 
the way, were queer new fruits and vegetables brought 
from America — with a long time reserved for committing 
chapters of the Bible to memory, and for the older ones 
to teach it to the younger. 

Just so much time for each thing and just so much of 
it was permitted — no more and no less — unless, indeed, 
it were laughing ! All accounts seem to agree that there 
was no limit in the Wesley household to that, and the 
Wesley children might — of course at proper times and 
in proper places — laugh as much as they felt like, but 
even the smallest babies must not cry — or if they did it 
must be very softly. We can see how this must have 
helped in such a large family. Fancy so many children 
shedding angry tears and making a hullabaloo all over 
the house from morning to night ! 

It is pleasant to know that there never was such an 
uproarious state of things in the Epworth parsonage. 

But the Wesleys, all of them, sang, and school always 
opened and closed with singing. 

I fancy that the Wesley children were not allowed to 
talk overmuch when older persons were present, and 
especially when distinguished people came to visit their 
father and mother; but they were sometimes permitted 
to listen, and we are told by some of the sons and daugh- 
ters that as children they learned a great deal of what 



44 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

was going on in the world and of public matters in this 
way. Books and newspapers were neither cheap nor 
plentiful in those days, and it was a great matter when 
some one came from London to the quiet parsonage in 
the country and told some startling piece of news which 
had been heard in a coffee-house or news-room ; perhaps 
the visitor wore clothes cut after a new fashion, or, and 
best of all, as the children thought, brought to them in 
his saddle bags a package of some new kind of food from 
over the seas. 

Still, they were not likely to get more than a taste, 
especially if, as were probable, the package contained 
tea, a costly beverage which at that time was a great 
luxury, coming all the way from China, and costing five 
dollars or more a pound. Tea was not, however, at this 
time as much of a novelty as it had been a few years 
before, when some one receiving a present of some, 
boiled it in water, poured off the brown liquid and ate 
the leaves, with salt and butter. The result is not known ! 
To be sure, the ship that brought the tea perhaps carried 
also preserved ginger or other sweetmeats from China, 
and the kind friend, if rich enough, might possibly re- 
member the Epworth children. Alas ! one of Mrs. Wes- 
ley's rules was, "Nothing to eat between meals !" 

Perhaps you may have heard your father say, "What- 
ever your mother says, goes." It was just that way 
with John and Charles Wesley and the seventeen other 
children — whatever their mother said, went. 

Well, the children "turned out" finely, so Mrs. Wes- 
ley's training must have been good. Their methodical 
ways to which they kept when they grew up enabled them 
to do an enormous amount of work as business men and 
housekeepers, authors and authoresses, musicians, poets 



THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA 45 

and poetesses, preachers (but not, I believe, preacher- 
esses), while their not crying could not have hurt them 
for when they became men and women they were not 
troubled with "nerves/' and their untiring energy was 
simply magnificent! 

As to laughing all they could — that formed a splendid 
habit, too. Years and years and years afterward when 
someone asked John Wesley how it was that he could 
always be so cheerful, he said it was natural to him to 
be so. "I could not," he said, "fret any more than I 
could lie or swear." 

And it was a splendid thing in the Wesley family, 
that they were all so truthful and upright, for in the 
time they lived there was a terrible amount of lying and 
swearing in the world, of drunkenness, too, and all kinds 
of vice. 

As we take leave of the school days at Epworth par- 
sonage, let me quote some words that seem to describe 
the boys whom we shall presently follow to college. 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? 

He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, 
and speaketh the truth in his heart. 

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; 

Who hath not lifted up his soul unto falsehood, 

And hath not sworn deceitfully. 

He shall receive a blessing from the Lord and right- 
eousness from the God of his salvation. 

The following tiny hymn for little children was writ- 
ten by one of the children of the Epworth parsonage : 

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, 
Look upon this little child; 
Pity my simplicity, 
Suffer me to come to Thee. 



46 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Fain I would to Thee be brought, 
Gracious God, forbid it not; 
In the kingdom of Thy grace 
Grant Thy little child a place. 

John and Charles did go to college — to Oxford. They 
were among the youngest of the family and probably 
their older brothers helped them through. 

Naturally they took with them the methodical ways 
and the religious habits of their boyhood. A few others 
of similar character joined them in these things and soon 
their dissipated and time-wasting fellow students began 
in ridicule to call them "Methodists." Little did they 
dream that this nickname would stick, and become honor- 
able, and that some day, by the example of the Wesley s 
and through their influence" there would be millions and 
millions of " Methodists," not in England only, but in 
almost the whole world. 

Yet so it turned out, and even greater things than this 
came to pass. 

Great Britain at that time was not much like the noble 
and enlightened country that it is to-day. Shall I tell you 
to what it owes a great part of the difference ? Or, will 
you try to find out for yourself in the first page of this 
chapter ? 

Put on your thinking caps, and I am sure you can give 
the right answer. 

I hope you will be able to, for I must hasten on to tell 
you about that third boy. His name was George White- 
field, and he was born not in a parsonage, but in an inn, 
and grew up in very bad surroundings to be a stable boy 
and bartender. 

After a time, he became disgusted with this life, 
turned to better things and began to wish for an educa- 



THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA 47 

tion. He managed at length to go to Oxford, where he 
formed a friendship with John and Charles Wesley and 
others of the little group of "Methodists," and with them 
he learned much of the truth and power of the Bible. 
He soon became filled with a great desire to tell to others 
what he himself had learned of the love of God made 
known through Jesus Christ; to tell them also that they 
must be "born again" as Jesus told Nicodemus. 

Strange as it seems to us to-day, when bishops and 
ministers found that young Whitefield and the Wesley s 
were preaching that people must turn from their sins and 
live lives of earnest purpose and endeavor after good- 
ness, they closed the churches against them. "Well, 
then," said Whitefield, "the fields are open," and he and 
the Wesleys began to preach in the open places about 
London and in fields or on hillsides in the country. The 
country people flocked to hear them from miles and miles 
around. 

The young ministers preached also in the fields near 
large manufacturing cities and the great coal mines by 
the sea, and many a great tree still called a "Gospel Oak" 
shows where some of these preaching places w^ere. 

Sometimes as many as twenty thousand people gath- 
ered to listen to wonderful words of life such as they 
had never before heard. 

John Wesley preached also to men of Cornwall, who 
were not miners but wreckers, for there was many and 
many a wreck on its rocky coasts. 

Now, on all dangerous sea coasts there are life-saving 
stations, and daring and courageous life-savers. In 
Wesley's day these men of the coast watched for storms 
in unholy eagerness and made, rather than prevented, 
wrecks; and many a poor sailor or passenger on a mer- 



48 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

chant ship cast up by the waves with the breath still in 
his body, was killed or robbed of all his belongings and 
left to die by these inhuman men. So long had they thus 
robbed and murdered, that no sense of right seemed to be 
left ; but the mingled kindness of action and stern preach- 
ing of these young men awoke even their consciences, so 
that many of them repented of their evil deeds and tried 
for the rest of their lives to atone for them by becoming 
intrepid life-savers, rescuing and restoring to life many 
a wrecked sailor who seemed to have drawn his last 
breath. 

So it was everywhere all over Great Britain; this new 
preaching, like John the Baptist's, brought forth fruits 
"worthy of repentance," for this preaching was kept up 
for years and years, and John Wesley became the head 
of a great body of Christians that ever grew larger. 

Notice of the place of meeting having been sent on 
ahead of the preacher, immense crowds gathered at the 
spot chosen, waiting patiently often for hours until Wes- 
ley appeared on his horse; perhaps singing hymns while 
they waited, for in all these years the hymns of Charles 
Wesley had sung the gospel all through England, Scot- 
land, Wales and Ireland. 

Charles Wesley is called the "Sweet Singer of Metho- 
dism," and his brother John might well be named the 
"Man on Horseback," for for years he rode sixty or sev- 
enty miles a day, going from one preaching place to an- 
other. He and Whitefield in this way preached to millions 
of people, high and low, educated and ignorant ; and when 
multitudes became earnest Christians, turning from their 
former ways of living, of course England became a very 
different place. When people really love God, they "love 
their brother also," and as the influence of the "Metho- 



THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA 49 

dists" became wider and deeper there was born in Eng- 
land a great love for humanity, such as had never before 
been known. 

Let me tell you of some splendid things which were 
kindled by The Torch as it was borne through Great 
Britain by John and Charles Wesley, and by Whitefield. 
(But Whitefield did not spend all his life in Great 
Britain. I will tell you about that presently.) 

One of the great changes was in the character of the 
ministers, the "fox-hunting parsons" and the "absentee 
bishops," some of whom never even saw their churches 
and people, but lived far away in some gayer and pleas- 
anter place. 

Since Wesley's preaching and arousing of the con- 
science of Great Britain, bishops and ministers have be- 
come most noble and useful ; this has been a most impor- 
tant thing for England, for there is a saying, "Like priest, 
like people," and the people are changed also. 

One of the finest things brought about was the estab- 
lishment of schools for the common people. These began 
in Robert Raikes' Sunday Schools, and we are told that 
a member of John Wesley's family persuaded him to 
attempt them. 

Whether this is true or not, popular education in Eng- 
land is due to the new interest in children aroused by 
Wesley and his fellow workers. 

This new "Passion of love for humanity," led also to 
foreign missions (including missions to America and the 
Indians), and to the stopping of the English slave trade; 
to the lessening of cruelty in prisons and workhouses, 
and to righteous living and a love of truthfulness. 

As I said, Whitefield did not spend all his life in Great 
Britain; he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, in any 



50 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

sort of vessel that could be found to take him, and the 
voyage was always many weeks long ; sometimes he sailed 
for thirteen weeks before reaching land. Besides these 
voyages, he many times sailed in a small sloop from 
Savannah to New York or Boston, for he made many 
trips through the colonies, always preaching to enormous 
crowds; often twenty, sometimes thirty thousand gath- 
ered to hear him. Sometimes he made the long journey 
from Philadelphia to Georgia by land, traveling on horse- 
back. 

When we remember that these were the days of Daniel 
Boone and of Leather-stocking and "The Last of the 
Mohicans," we can easily imagine some of his adventures 
by the way. Often it was only the ring of fire around his 
camp that saved him from the attacks of wild beasts. 
What a long and dangerous journey — traveling in this 
way! 

Whenever there were people to hear him, Whitefield 
preached, and so aroused the conscience of the American 
people that ever since the result of his visits has been 
called the "Great Awakening." 

Many things for America's good came from his tire- 
less journeyings and eloquent preaching, but the prin- 
cipal reason for telling in this book of this particular 
"Bearer of the Torch" is the fact that out of the love 
for God and man that his preaching awoke, sprang the 
Home Missionary societies of our country, and in this 
way we can trace back to Whitefield the glorious work 
for "the regions beyond" that has been done since home 
missions began. 

So was The Torch passed on to America! 

Is it not true that those three boys did a splendid work 
for the happiness and betterment of the world ? 




iJ3l,e.CTVatt 



THE TORCH PASSED ON TO AMERICA 51 

Not much has been said about one of them — Charles 
Wesley. Yet, as already told, his hymns sang the gos- 
pel all over Great Britain, and still, every Sunday, they 
ring throughout Christendom. 

In Newburyport, Massachusetts, where Whitefield 
died, there is a monument on which is inscribed some 
record of his work; but never can be told the blessings 
that all our country owes directly or indirectly to his 
noble life— our country as a whole and also what we call 
our "exceptional populations," for soon after Christian 
men had formed societies "to carry the gospel to regions 
beyond" (meaning the country to the west of Albany), 
Christian women arose in their might and organized for 
work which has since done wonderful things for the 
Indians of our country, for Mexicans, Alaskans and 
Negroes, people of the southern mountains and Porto 
Ricans and immigrants. 

All this had its start in the devotion of these three 
boys — as a pebble cast into a lake, starts circles that, 
growing wider and wider, break at last on the shores of 
eternity. 



III. 

BEARERS OF THE TORCH IN THE SOUTH. 



'Tor HI brack sheep, don' strayed away, 

Don' los' in de win' an' de rain; 
An' de Shepherd, He say, 'O hirelin,' 

Go, fin' my sheep again.' 
But de hirelin' frown — 'O Shepherd, 

Dat sheep am brack and bad.' 
But de Shepherd, He smile, like de HI brack sheep 

Was the onliest lamb He had. 

"An' He say, 'O hirelin,' hasten, 

For de win' an' de rain am col'; 
And dat HI brack sheep am lonesome, 

Out dar so far from de fol'.' 
De hirelin' frown — 'O Shepherd, 

Dat sheep am ol' and gray.' 
But de Shepherd, He smile, like de HI brack sheep 

Wus fair as de break ob day. 

"An' de Shepherd go out in de darkness, 

Where de night was col' an' bleak; 
An' de HI brack sheep, He find it, 

An' lay it agains' His cheek. 
An' de hirelin' frown — 'O Shepherd, 

Don' bring dat sheep to me.' 
But de Shepherd, He smile, and He hoi' it close, 

An' — dat lil brack sheep wuz me." 



Ill 

BEARERS OF THE TORCH IN THE SOUTH 

SO far, we have heard a good deal about boys, but 
once upon a time a girl did something — something 
great — and she did it when a young girl, too. 

Somehow, this world of ours always seems to be in 
need of something, and if the need is not met, it will be 
very much worse for the world ! 

Perhaps you have noticed, too, in reading this book, 
that when such a need is beginning to be felt, there is 
always a baby born somewhere, who will grow up with 
exactly the powers needed to fill the need. 

Martin Luther, for instance, the great "Lighter of the 
Torch," loved music, and had a beautiful voice; and in 
school he was "good in languages." You will remember, 
I am sure, how these two gifts helped him in his grand 
life-work for the good of the world. You will like to 
think this out for yourself, as you go on with this book. 

It seems to be true, too, that every boy and girl is born 
with just the particular powers that will make possible 
the doing of his or her life-work. Sometimes these 
powers are wilfully turned in the wrong direction, and 
that makes terrible confusion and loss in the world. 

Think these things out as you study this book, and see 
how splendidly fitted our boys and girls were for their 
life-work, and what fine use they made of their powers. 

55 



56 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

As for me, I must go on with the story, and tell what 
that girl did ! 

In the last chapter, we found that Whitefield and the 
Wesleys by their Bible preaching and teaching, awoke in 
England and America a new desire to do right, and that 
fine things followed their preaching. One of those things 
was teaching people to read, and showing them that the 
Bible was the greatest book to read, and that without it 
they could not know either how to live, or how to die. 

Now, that is, at the time we are telling about, when 
the nineteenth century was just about to begin, there 
were many thousands of people able to read the Word of 
God and longing to do so, and no Bibles were to be had, 
or only a very few, and these were very costly. 

This was the great need of the world — Bibles. 

Just at this time away over in a little village in the 
mountains of Wales a small girl was trudging along to 
school, for the minister of that village had opened a 
school where the children were taught to read the Bible 
in their own Welsh language. 

I will show you how a verse of it looked,* and I am 
sure you will think that the little maiden, whose name was 
Mary, was very smart to be able to read and pronounce 
such outlandish looking words : 

Canys felly y carodd Duw y byd, fel y rhod- 
dodd efe ei unig-anedig Fab, fel na choller pwy 
bynnag a gredo ynddo ef, ond caffael o hono 
fywyd tragywyddol. 

She was used to them, though, and they were not "out- 
landish" to her, but were the natural sounds of the 
dearly-loved tongue of her own land. 



>John 3:16 



1 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH IN THE SOUTH 57 

Mary quickly learned to read the Bible and to love its 
beautiful stories, but she had no Bible of her own. 
Welsh Bibles were even more scarce and costly than 
English Bibles, and the little girl's father was a very 
poor man. 

But a relative who lived two miles away had a Bible, 
and Mary Jones, then ten years old, trudged often over 
the four miles to read it, and as she tramped sturdily 
along one day, the thought came to her, "Why not earn 
some money and buy a Bible for myself ? / will." 

So she began to earn money ; it was slow work, for she 
was paid very little for her labor. 

The resolute girl — girls as well as boys may have 
strong wills — kept this up for six long years. Then she 
thought she had enough money to pay the price of a 
Bible. But where could she find one? One day she 
heard that a minister at Bala had some Welsh Bibles for 
sale. To be sure, Bala was twenty-five miles away — 
long Welsh miles — and mountains towered between. But 
what of that? Could she not walk and climb? 

So one day, in much excitement and very happy, carry- 
ing her hard-earned, precious money, she fared forth 
and crossed mountains and valleys. How the road did 
stretch out ! But at last, late at night, she reached Bala, 
and the minister's house was all shut up and dark. What 
was to be done? Happily, a light twinkled in another 
house where lived a good elder and his wife, who gave 
her kind shelter, and food ; and in the morning the elder, 
having heard her story, took her, happy and hopeful, to 
the rectory, where he repeated the story to the minister. 

And what do you think the minister told her? Why, 
that he had disposed of all his Bibles ! 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH IN THE SOUTH 59 

So the need of the world was met. But in this book, 
we are thinking most of the need of America, great in- 
deed at the time our American Bible Society was formed ; 
how great was discovered by means of a house-to-house 
canvass all over our country as it was then settled. 

You would not believe how many children were grow- 
ing up in America who had never even seen a Bible ! 

So the first great work of "Home Missions" in Amer- 
ica was done by the Bible societies when they sent out 
men and Bibles with instructions to put the Book into 
the hands of every family in our country, especially in 
the destitute places of the South and West — "the West" 
at that time hardly extending beyond the Mississippi 
River. 

In this chapter we shall follow some "Bearers of The 
Torch" into our southern country, not forgetting that it 
is from the "pebble cast into the lake" by a little Welsh 
girl that we are enabled to carry on all our work for 
Alaska and the Indians, for our Spanish-speaking people 
in the southwest and Porto Rico, for the immigrants, 
coming to us from all countries ; for the one need for our 
work is the Word of God, and from our "Bearers of The 
Torch" this Word sounds forth. 

Our "Bearers of The Torch" in the South carry the 
message to very different kinds of people; to the moun- 
taineers who once had the Word, and whose strong 
characters owe their strength to its teachings, although 
now almost forgotten; and to the "Freedmen," children 
of slaves, the most of whom never had a Bible. 

It hardly seems right to speak nowadays of "Freed- 
men," because an end was put to slavery so long ago that 
only the very oldest negroes still living were ever slaves, 
while all the others are like ourselves, free-born, not 
freed. 



60 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

There are millions of these people in our Southern 
States, and many Bearers of The Torch have hastened to 
them to light up the darkness of ignorance. It was diffi- 
cult work when so few even knew how to read ; the first 
need was schools in which they could be taught not only 
to read and write, but also how to live, and these schools, 
of which there are now a large number, have done won- 
ders in helping to make strong, good, and self-reliant 
men and women, who are keeping up Christian homes. 

Scattered through the South are now many schools, 
each of which is like a taper lighted from The Torch, 
and it is astonishing how much light even a taper can 
shed abroad ! 

Multitudes of children throng these schools, bright and 
happy little children, although many of them are desper- 
ately poor; they are learning "to do things by doing," 
and how to make healthful and happy homes. 

No one can possibly measure the good to our country 
from the little, but always crowded, country schools, 
and the larger day schools, and especially from the board- 
ing schools and academies, where young men and women 
are getting a thorough preparation for the life-training 
of hand and head and heart. 

There have been — there are now — some great Bearers 
of The Torch to the Mountains of the South, and these 
adventurers, climbing and descending steep mountain 
sides and crossing swirling waters as they went from 
cabin to cabin with their Glad Tidings, were sometimes 
hot unlike those actual bearers of the Cross in the moun- 
tains of Scotland. 

But their message was not a summons to battle. The 
"Bearer of The Torch" carried a message of love and 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH IN THE SOUTH 61 

good will which healed the scars of war in many a feud 
between clan and clan in the mountains of Kentucky and 
Tennessee. 

Not that only, but whole communities have been re- 
deemed by their message, and thousands of men and 
women, thoroughly educated and trained to bear their 
part in life's battles, are now living noble Christian lives, 
and other thousands of boys and girls are now joyous 
Christians with earnest purpose in life, and devoting 
energy and strength to obtaining an education in schools 
conducted by Bearers of the Cross in the South, where 
the student's every faculty is being trained for happy 
Christian service. 

In all these schools the Bible is taught every day and is 
the rule of conduct for every one — teachers and pupils. 
As to the knowledge of the Bible possessed by these boys 
and girls in our mission schools — well, I'm afraid some of 
you might better think twice before consenting to a "Bible 
contest" with them ! In fact, I am sure some of you 
could not begin to compete ; and that is not much credit 
to you with your splendid "chance in life," is it? 

This "chance in life" is such a great thing to these 
boys and girls. They will work hard for years, and make 
every sacrifice for it — while some of you — a few of you 
— care so little for school and all it means that you might 
even "play hookey" if the truant officer would give you a 
chance ! 

One thing we have not noticed, and that is how, in all 
our mission work, the boys and girls taught in the schools, 
light tapers, as it were, from the great Light, and speed 
forth to carry their message into some dark place. 

You would scarcely believe how bright a light they 
carry, nor how far they sometimes carry it, even into 



62 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

places where a horror of great darkness lies upon the 
hearts of the people until the bright shining of this Light 
makes the shadows flee away. 

There are many splendid stories about those who, hav- 
ing been handed The Torch, speed away with it until at 
the right time and place it is passed on to another run- 
ner, who takes it and speeds on and on. 

Watch for such a story in the last chapter of this book ! 

And in the meantime, don't forget that the great things 
of this chapter came about through the love of one little 
girl for the Bible. You see you never can tell, any more 
than Mary Jones could, to what glorious service simply 
doing right may lead ! 



IV 

A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 



"Two years ago a young woman came to our mission 
school. She was unable to read, had had no advantages 
in bringing up, but, like Topsy, had 'just growed/ She 
did good work in our industrial department, and as good 
as could be expected in the class room. During the past 
summer she married one of our evangelists. I visited 
their home last week. She was the very picture of neat- 
ness and everything in her house was clean and com- 
fortable. The floors of her rooms w r ere like a table, her 
beds were snow-white and her cooking the best I have 
ever seen in a Mexican home. She goes with her hus- 
band and sings and reads with the people — a true mis- 
sionary. I was delighted, and said to the teacher as I 
called at the school: 'If you had not done any other 
work, this one girl is enough/ But she is only one of 
hundreds scattered through New Mexico. 

"'Any perceptible difference?' Yes, as much differ- 
ence as between day and night, as between light and 
darkness." 



IV 

A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 

WHEN we first catch a glimpse of her — this small 
Torch Bearer-to-be — she is busily doing her 
afternoon "stint" of patchwork in the pleasant 
and sunshiny kitchen of her Virginia home. Never does 
she dream that when she grows up she will be a mission- 
ary to New Mexico. She might possibly have thought of 
the Islands of the South Seas, for one hundred years 
ago — more or less — when this tiny maiden was taking 
careful stitches — but between them looking and listening 
longingly for the sights and sounds of the lovely out- 
doors in garden and orchard — it was at least known where 
the South Seas were and how to get to them! As for 
New Mexico, one might almost as well try to get to the 
moon. 

However, girls do unexpected things sometimes. This 
little girl grew bigger and bigger, and after several birth- 
days had passed she was quite a young lady, and very 
attractive, for each year she had become brighter and 
prettier and more sweet and gentle, and each year her 
character had grown stronger, for she was a courageous 
girl with a firm and resolute will. Altogether, it is not 
at all strange that when about this time a young minister 
happened along and met this charming maiden, he should 
think her the prettiest and best girl he had ever seen. 

65 



66 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

So he came often to see her, and one sweet May day 
an eager young man and a blushing girl stood in the 
orchard, in the midst of the birds and blossoms, hand in 
hand. He said something, and she said something, with 
tearful eyes but smiling lips; and just then, a pert little 
robin, looking sidewise at them, with his bright eyes, 
saw something — and possibly heard something, for a 
robin's hearing is very keen — and off he flew to a tree, 
where he chuckled and trilled and fluted in a most en- 
trancing way, while a little breeze from the west wafted 
down apple-blossoms — and apple-blossoms are every whit 
as good for the purpose as orange-blossoms — over the 
girl's bright hair. 

It is easy to see that the young minister had asked the 
pretty girl to go with him through life, and that she had 
said, "Whither thou goest, / will go" ; and so they went off 
together, over the hills and far away, for in the young 
Home Missionary's commission was written New Mexico. 

And that is how the little Virginia maid became a mis- 
sionary to New Mexico! 

She and her husband had a hard and very long journey. 
While waiting for them to reach the end of it, suppose 
we try to learn something of the "land of sunshine" to 
which they were going. 

And first we shall have to go away back on the road to 
long ago; back indeed to one of that fifteenth century 
bunch of boys ! It does seem as if everything depended 
upon something else, doesn't it ? You see, if Columbus — 
or somebody else — had not discovered America, the 
Spaniards would not have found gold in it, and if they 
had not found gold — but the chain would be too long for 
us to handle, should we add on every link. 



A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 67 

It is enough for us now that Columbus did discover 
America "in 1492/* and that the Spaniards did find gold 
— enormous quantities of it — but still they wanted more. 
The vision of gold danced before their eyes and fairly 
dazzled their minds. A certain Spaniard, whose name 
you know, very likely, was told by the Indians in Porto 
Rico that not very far off there was an island which 
contained gold. Ponce de Leon obtained permission from 
the king of Spain to search for this island, which he hoped 
might contain also the "fountain of youth" for which he 
was looking. 

So he sailed and he sailed, and at length reached land. 
He discovered it on, or near, Easter Sunday, and named it 
Florida. But it turned out that Florida had no gold, nor 
fountain of youth, and was not even an island ! So that 
bright dream faded. After some years another man tried 
to find gold ; sailing along the coast of the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, he came one day to a river, and on it he spent several 
weeks trading with the Indians. He noticed that they 
wore gold ornaments. This was exciting! Not much 
came of it, however. Presently still another Spaniard 
started to follow this vision of gold; he, too, saw those 
ornaments and was told by the Indians that there was 
gold in the Appalachian Mountains, and that sometimes 
the Indians living in those mountains covered their bodies 
with powdered gold. 

The "Gilded Man" at last ! Now, indeed, did the vision 
dazzle. This man, named Narvaez, started in pursuit 
with four hundred men. Such hardships they met and 
such disappointments! Narvaez himself was drowned, 
and after that misfortunes came thick and fast until only 
four men were left of the four hundred. 



68 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

These four, meeting with every kind of .adventure, 
nevertheless actually succeeded in crossing the continent 
from Florida to the Pacific coast, where was a little Span- 
ish town, built by soldiers who had come north from 
Mexico. 

The men told thrilling tales of multitudes of "hunch- 
back" cows they had seen (you know what they really 
were, but the Spaniards did not), and of stories they had 
heard from the Indians of cities of gold and silver where 
the very doorways of the houses were studded with 
precious stones. Think of that ! 

Excitement ran high. Here at last must be "The Island 
of Gold in the Western Sea" and the "Seven Cities of 
Cibola" for which so many gold-seekers had searched in 
vain! 

So a monk called Fray Marco was commanded to find 
out all he could about those wonderful seven cities, and 
to make a report of what he discovered. 

Fray Marco had splendid courage and endurance, as 
he needed to have, for his search took him all through 
what we now know as Arizona. When he came back he 
made his report, in which he really did not exaggerate, 
but in some strange way the wildest stories began to fly 
about. Such silver cities! Nay, such golden cities! 
Such doorways — whole doorways — made of turquoise! 
Such actual mountains of gold! 

All these stories so "went to the head" of the Spanish 
authorities, that a great expedition was fitted out to go 
in search of the "seven cities" and to capture them. (If 
you want to recall the date of this expedition, just re- 
member that it went out in the same year that Martin 
Luther made that splendid speech to the Diet of Worms.) 



A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 69 

The leader of the expedition had a long name — Don 
Francis Vasquez de Coronado — but the cavalcade he led 
was even longer ! 

There were two hundred dashing young men in flash- 
ing armor, mounted on fine horses brought from Spain. 
There were foot soldiers also, and a thousand Indians. 
Four priests, one of them Fray Marco himself, marched 
with the column. Then came horses carrying immense 
stores of food and of ammunition, and a thousand spare 
horses besides! — at least, so the account says. As part 
of the provisions great numbers of sheep and swine were 
taken along. 

Well it was all very splendid, and the people were in 
high spirits, but very soon things began to happen. 

Those proud-looking horses carrying the cavaliers 
were too high-fed for hard work; the soldiers did not 
know how to "pack" and the loads of provisions would 
slip off the horses' backs, and so much food was lost 
that the whole cavalcade was before long in danger of 
starvation. 

However, the seven cities were at length found — and 
what do you suppose they turned out to be? Only the 
Indian pueblos (villages) of Zuni! These "cities" were 
captured, but where was the gold? 

Bitterly disappointed, the expedition turned back — a 
dismal contrast to the gorgeousness with which it set out. 

Yet those dazzling stories were still believed in and 
other expeditions, with other leaders, were fitted out, 
and always the cunning Indians promised them that 
what they searched for was in the country just beyond! 

The gold they never found — but the eager search for 
it led to the exploration and opening of all that region, 
and the day came when it was named "New Mexico," 
and made a province of Spain. 



70 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

The first city built was given a high sounding name — 
The True City of the Sacred Faith of St. Francis. Hap- 
pily this was in time shortened to Santa Fe. 

Time passed on; colonists were sent out from Spain. 
The Indians were made to submit to baptism, but kept 
many of the customs of their own religion (the worship 
of the sun). Some of the priests sent out to the missions 
were men of fine courage and devotion, and they accom- 
plished wonders in turning the Indians from fierce ene- 
mies to peaceful friends, though they were really slaves 
in mind and spirit. 

In time some of the Spanish colonists married Indians, 
but the children of all alike, Spanish and Mexican, grew 
up in ignorance and superstition, the Bible being always 
held from them. 

This ignorance became worse and worse, until dark- 
ness itself seemed to enshroud the minds of the people. 

Nearly three hundred years after Coronado's expe- 
dition Mexico gained her independence of Spain. Then 
New Mexico became a province of Old Mexico. 

This did not change matters much. Things went on 
just about the same until something else happened which 
did make a difference. 

Please put on your thinking caps for a minute and 
think hard, for I want you to tell me what our country 
was doing at this time. 

"What time?" you say. 

But I have told you. I said Coronado's expedition to 
capture the "seven cities" set out in the same year that 
Martin Luther said "Go forward!" to those who sug- 
gested that he should turn back when he had set out 
for Worms. Then three hundred years from that date, 
Mexico gained her independence. That brings it, doesn't 
it, to 1821? 



A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 71 

Well, in 1821, what was the United States doing? 

For one thing, we had made the Louisiana Purchase 
eighteen years before, and now owned the country from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific (but not California yet. We 
shall come to that presently), and were beginning to 
explore it. 

Up to this time there was little knowledge of the 
country we now call New Mexico, Arizona and Cali- 
fornia, and it was tremendously important that just about 
the time we have been speaking of, an American trapper 
traveling through the Rocky Mountains in pursuit of fur- 
bearing animals, was led farther south than he had ever 
been, and so discovered the old Spanish-Mexican city of 
Santa Fe ! 

Here was new excitement! Suppose this Mexican 
market could be reached from the United States? Whew! 
the trapper's eyes glistened at the thought of possible 
future profits. 

And that was the beginning of it — of our knowledge 
of New Mexico, and of the "commerce of the prairie." 

For as soon as tidings of the trapper's "find" — which 
meant a new outlet for the productions of the East — 
reached St. Louis, merchants began to send off pack 
trains carrying goods for the Mexican market, and soon 
there was a trade with Santa Fe which in a few years 
became enormous. 

It is astonishing what danger and hardship men will 
endure if there is a prospect of making money. Travel 
over the Santa Fe trail was frightfully dangerous in 
every way, but most deadly of all was the peril from the 
Indians along the way. Nevertheless the traffic on the 
trail continued and increased. 



72 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Then, indeed, something happened. The trapper who 
started the interest in Santa Fe had done more than he 
ever dreamed of ; out of it came a great thing for Spanish 
America and for us, for presently the United States, dur- 
ing a war with Mexico, quietly took possession of Cali- 
fornia and the great territory of New Mexico, and in 
this way there came under our flag and protection the 
people that we have said were living in the darkness of 
ignorance, without the Bible or any knowledge of the 
gospel — most of them not even knowing how to read. 

Now it is plain why missionaries were sent to New 
Mexico, which at that time was more like a "foreign" than 
a "home" field, even if some families there had been in 
America a hundred years longer than any that "came 
over in the Mayflower." 

One can easily imagine that the customs of New Mex- 
ico — many of them — are those which came into Spain 
with the Moors from Africa ; and they in turn had prac- 
ticed them since the days of Abraham. Much that 
surrounds the life and home of a Mexican ranchman 
reminds one strangely of what he reads in the Bible, of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A visitor to New Mexico in 
the early days said : 

"All along the country people were gathering and 
threshing their grain, for it was the season of harvest. 
But such harvesting ! It would set an eastern farmer in 
despair. The grain that had been raised in ground 
plowed with a crooked stick was being reaped with a 
sickle, and their hay was being cut with a hoe, literally 
cut off at the roots. As in the days of Ruth and Boaz, 
men and women were still reaping with a sickle and 
some gleaning. Others were treading out grain with 
sheep, and others engaged in winnowing it. After clean- 
ing out the bulk of the store with forks, the wheat and 
chaff were shoveled into woolen blankets, which, by a 
series of jerks, similar to shaking carpets, tossed their 



A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 73 

contents into the air, the chaff blowing away, and the 
wheat falling back upon the blankets. This process can 
only be carried forward when the wind is favorable, con- 
sequently to avail themselves of a favorable wind they 
work all night. So did the men of Boaz. (Look up Ruth, 
3:2). A still further process was to lift the wheat in a 
bucket as high as the head and empty it slowly upon a 
blanket spread upon the ground. Separated from the 
chaff the wheat was taken by the women to a neighboring 
stream and washed in large earthen jars after which it 
was spread on woolen blankets in the sun to dry. 

"Great flocks of goats and sheep cover the plains, and 
donkeys abound in the villages. The burro, or Mexi- 
can donkey, is certainly the poor man's friend. He 
carries for them their household, their firewood, their 
grain. In the fields are occasional lodges (Isaiah 1:8) 
as a shelter while watching the melons and grain. Roads 
for foot passengers and pack-animals run through the 
grain and corn fields (Mark 2: 23) and along the un- 
fenced wayside are the graves of the former inhabi- 
tants, with a rude board across and a pile of stones at the 
feet (2 Sam. 23: 17). Some of these graves are along 
trails up the mountain side, so steep that the traveler 
uses his hands as well as his feet to ascend. Women 
carry water in great jars upon their heads and shoulders 
(Genesis 24: 14)." 

Now, would you not, seeing these things, feel as if you 
were in a foreign and a very ancient country ? 

In naming this chapter we must have been thinking 
rather of the Scot whose chieftain said to him as he put 
the signal of the cross in his hand : 

"The muster place is Lanrick mead — 
Speed forth the signal ! clansman, speed !" 

for certainly creaking slowly along in a "prairie schooner" 
for three months can hardly be called running to New 
Mexico — except as the eager desire of our Torch Bear- 
ers to obey their Lord's command ran on before. 



74 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

While the going was so painfully slow, there was no 
lack of excitement and stir, for our missionaries were all 
the time in the midst of danger and peril which beset 
the Trail. Perils of the desert, of thirst, of wild beasts, 
of treacherous rivers, but most constant and most of all, 
of Indians. 

In those days of the Old Trail travelers were never 
without escort of soldiers if possible, but certainly of 
scouts and guides. "Kit Carson," perhaps, or possibly 
"Buffalo Bill" himself, protected the little Virginia bride 
and her husband on this trip out. By this time the pack 
trains of the earliest days had given way to long caravans 
of a hundred wagons — sometimes more than a hundred — 
drawn by eight hundred oxen, with two hundred fully 
armed men. These caravans made two trips a year, go- 
ing out in the spring and returning in the fall. 

Very likely Kit Carson and Buffalo Bill and many 
another scout of the plains are long time friends of 
yours, and if so I need hardly tell you how the caravan 
was, in a jiffy, turned into a fortification. 

It will do no harm, though, to explain that the wagons 
were driven along the Trail in two parallel columns with 
a space of thirty feet between. In this space were the 
loose animals. Scouts were always on the lookout for 
Indians and gave quick warning if any were seen. In 
such a case the train master made a signal, the oxen were 
halted, the head and rear wagons of the two columns 
were turned in towards each other and the caravan, 
loaded mostly with cotton stuffs, instantly became, as I 
said, a fortification. 

Yet, notwithstanding all the watchfulness and the de- 
fenses, so sudden and deadly were the Indian attacks 
that all along its course the Old Trail showed ghastly 
proofs of lives lost. 



A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 75 

There were many tragic happenings, but our young 
home missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. McFarland, got safely 
through and at last reached Santa Fe and began their 
work. Hard work, too, it was, needing courage and love 
and patience. 

A sentence from a letter gives us a little understanding 
of the homesickness and loneliness of those early days: 

"We received your kind and cheering letters with 
something of the feelings of the Israelites when they 
received manna from heaven, for they are food and en- 
couragement to our sometimes almost famishing spirits." 

Teaching the children was the most hopeful part of 
the early work. Through Mrs. McFarland's gentle tact 
and persuasiveness pupils were found for the first at- 
tempt at educational work in New Mexico. A teacher 
came to teach them — making the long and dangerous 
journey of fifteen hundred miles in a stage coach alone. 

It was a group of forlorn and sad-eyed children who 
formed Miss Gaston's little school at Santa Fe. Every- 
thing about the school was forlorn, especially the little 
adobe (dried mud) building in which it was held. 

The building and its furniture continued to be sad- 
looking and forlorn for many a day, but not so the chil- 
dren. Their faces brightened wonderfully, and grew 
sweet and smiling. 

But let us read what the teacher herself said about the 
condition of people and things : 

"Sad it is to see the destitute condition of these poor, 
ignorant people. In many of their houses we find nothing 
but a few blankets and mattresses, laid down on the hard 
beaten earth floor in one corner, and a little pot made by 
themselves to do their cooking in. All the household eat 
with their fingers out of the same pot. But they are be- 



76 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

ginning to look up. I can go into their houses and teach 
them anything I choose. They will come and ask me to 
teach them, and watch me while I am cooking. Our 
school will be larger than last year but, alas ! our school- 
room is a miserable place. 

"There is no blackboard, table or desk, nothing in it but 
three low benches and an old home-made chair. When 
it rains, the water pours down through the adobe roof. 
I have stood and taught when the water was flooding 
down all around me and the floor was a pool of mud and 
water. Last winter some of our pupils were sick most 
of the time because of these conditions, but they con- 
tinued to come and made great progress in their studies, 
notwithstanding their miserable surroundings. As long 
as they show such eager interest we shall try to teach 
them, if we have to stand out of doors to do it." 

The Mexican villages are all built after one pattern — a 
large public square called a plaza, around which are 
grouped the one-story adobe houses. In the early days 
they did not have improvements of any kind; no fences, 
no yards, no gardens — nothing but the little packing-box- 
like adobe houses, and the ground around them was as 
hard and dusty as the public highway. 

How different are things now ! The march of progress 
has set in in New Mexico — not with very rapid pace in all 
parts, and in some parts where American settlers have 
not yet appeared, things are even as they used to be. 
Some farmers still "plow with a crooked stick, reap their 
grain with a sickle" and tramp it out with ponies and 
goats, and with them grinding is still done by rubbing 
two stones together with the grain between ; but in many 
places binders and threshers are used, and in the larger 
towns, steam or electric mills do the grinding for all the 
country round about. 



A RUNNER TO NEW MEXICO 77 

And notice how Mrs. McFarland's little school at Santa 
Fe has grown! 

Says a traveler : "I went to Santa Fe many years ago. 
Mrs. McFarland was teaching in a little day school for 
Mexicans, and that school has grown into your magnifi- 
cent boarding school for girls, called now The Allison 
James School. How like a beacon light it is ! Parents 
bring their children many miles over the long roads and 
unbridged rivers, as did a father who arrived on one 
occasion, after a journey of three hundred miles in a 
wagon with five children, and beamingly announced that 
there were six more at home whom he would bring next 
year !" 

I wish the little Virginia girl who was a Torch Bearer 
— I mean the Torch Bearer who was once that little 
Virginia girl, could see the wonderful harvest that has 
come from the seed she planted with such love and pa- 
tience ! 

One may find this harvest of Christian character today 
all over the state of New Mexico. 

When it comes to true manhood and true womanhood 
there is no comparison between the graduates of the mis- 
sion schools and the graduates of other schools in New 
Mexico and for this there is just one reason: The Torch, 
which is the Word of God, has been held high every day 
in every mission school and its light has illumined the 
minds and hearts and its message has built up strong 
Christian character in boys and girls who are now men 
and women doing brave and splendid work, true, honest 
work for New Mexico. 

After all, the Word of God has run and been glorified 
in the Southwest. 



V 

A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 



And fhere were shepherds in fhe same country abiding 
in the field, and keeping watch by night over their flock. 
And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the glory of 
the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore 
afraid. And the angel said unto them, Be not afraid ; for 
behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall 
be to all the people : For there is born to you this day in 
the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And 
this is the sign unto you: Ye shall find a babe wrapped 
in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. And sud- 
denly there was with the angel a multitude of the heaven- 
ly host praising God, and saying, 

Glory to God in the highest, 

And on earth peace, good will to men. 

To William Duncan: 

"Thy labours done, 

Thy Lord shall speed the signal on." 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 

STILL another carol singer ! He sang in the choir of 
Beverly Minster; people came long distances to 
hear his wonderful voice, and the clear notes ring- 
ing true with other voices as the Processional was sung, 
or high and sweet in a solo, belonged to a boy whose 
face and walk showed him to have a firm, strong will, as 
had the carol singer of Eisenach — Martin Luther ! 

I wonder what great work this boy — his name is Wil- 
liam Duncan — is going to do ! for it does seem that the 
gift of a resolute will, which will not be turned aside or 
overcome, means that the owner of it has before him 
something hard and splendid to do. 

At all events — when William Duncan grew to be six- 
teen or seventeen years old, he entered business, and was 
getting on finely, delighting his employers with his ability 
and his faithfulness, when a friend told him of a mis- 
sionary address to be given on a certain night in his 
church — the church where he had been choir boy — and 
asked him to attend the meeting. 

William promised to go, but rather regretted he had 
done so when the evening arrived, stormy and drizzling. 

Still, he had promised, so he went, and was one of a 
very small audience. After a burning address, the 
speaker in earnest prayer implored the Lord to put it 

81 



82 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

into the mind of some young man present to give his life 
to the spreading of the knowledge of the gospel. 

After the prayer, William looked about him. He was 
the only young man in the church. 

On his way home, through the slushy streets of the 
little north of England city of Beverly, where he lived, 
young Duncan did some hard thinking. 

"1 was the only young man there," he thought. "Why 
should I not become a missionary? May not the Lord 
have something for me to do in heathen lands ?" 

It was his way then and always to think things through, 
and before he slept his mind was made up : 

"If God wants me," he said to himself, "I will accept 
the call and carry the glad tidings to some desolate 
heathen homes." 

This decision meant giving up a large salary and very 
bright prospects, for already there opened out before him 
a brilliant business career. 

None of these things moved William Duncan ! Paul's 
motto was his — "This one thing I do." 

One day he read an account of the terrible barbarism 
and savage cruelty of certain tribes of Indians living on 
the shores of the North Pacific Ocean. There was one 
settlement of nearly a dozen tribes who were so savage 
and bloodthirsty that the traders of the Hudson Bay 
Company were in constant fear of a general massacre. 
Their post at this settlement was strongly fortified with 
palisades of heavy timbers and massive gates. These 
in time of siege were often kept closed for months at a 
time. Cannon were mounted upon the galleries, there 
was a strong garrison of riflemen, and sentinels were on 
guard night and day. This post was called Fort Simpson. 
The account ended with an appeal for a missionary, and 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 83 

Captain Prevost, who wrote the account, offered a free 
passage in his ship to any one who would go to Fort 
Simpson to teach these savage people the gospel of 
Christ. 

The young man read the appeal, offered his services 
to the Church Missionary Society, was accepted, and 
within seven days had made preparation, said goodbye 
to his friends, and was off with Captain Prevost for the 
long voyage around Cape Horn. This was in the year 
1857, when Duncan was twenty-five years old. In six 
months they reached Vancouver Island, where Sir James 
Douglas, President of the Hudson Bay Company, tried 
to dissuade Duncan from going to Fort Simpson, telling 
him that he would throw his life away to no purpose, and 
urging him to remain as a missionary at Vancouver, 
where he would have ample protection. But no — to Fort 
Simpson and those murderous cannibals Duncan had 
set out to go, and to Fort Simpson he did go. 

The day after he reached the fort, and for many days 
after, he saw from the galleries of the fort actions of the 
Indians too horrible to tell about; but you may be sure 
of one thing — that the man who could see them and yet 
remain among the people to do them good must have 
had the most dauntless courage, and a heart of tender 
and Christ-like compassion. 

Night and day for eight months he worked at the lan- 
guage; and, strangely enough, the language of these sav- 
age and debased tribes is most rich and musical, and full 
of poetical expression. 

In this study Mr. Duncan had the help of a native 
named Clah, an Indian interpreter, who had free access 
to the fort. 

The Indians became very curious as to the reasons for 
Mr. Duncan's presence among them. After a while a 



84 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

rumor spread that he had come from afar to bring them 
a message from God. One day an Indian came to the 
fort to find whether this rumor were true. Mr. Duncan 
tells us about this visit : 

"The Indian first asked, 'What do you mean by 1858?' 

"I had to tell them that 1858 represented the number 
of years we had had the Gospel of God in the world. 

"He said, 'Why didn't you tell us of this before ? Why 
were not our forefathers told this ?' 

"I looked upon this as a poser. He said to me, 'Have 
you got the word of God?' 

"That in the English language would be the same as 
saying, 'Have you got a letter from God?' 

"I said, 'Yes, I have God's letter.' That would really 
be the idea that would reach the Indian's mind. 

"He said, 'I want to see it.' 

"I then got my Bible. Remember, this was my first 
introduction. I wanted them to understand that I had 
not brought a message from the white man in England 
or anywhere else, but a message from the King of kings, 
the God of heaven. They wanted to see that. The man 
came into the house, and I showed him the Bible. He 
put his finger very cautiously upon it and said, 'Is that 
the Word?' 

" 'Yes,' I said, 'it is.' 

"He said, 'Has He sent it to us?' 

"I said, 'He has, just as much as He has to me.' 

" 'Are you going to tell the Indians that?' 

"I said, T am.' 

"He said, 'Good, very good.' " 

Mr. Duncan soon mastered the language, and began to 
deliver his message. Some heard it gladly, but many, 
and especially the chiefs and "medicine men" of the 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 85 

tribes, were determined to keep to their heathen ways, 
and tried to kill the man who had come to turn them from 
these wicked and cruel customs. 

After a while some of the Indians had become Chris- 
tians. Mr. Duncan had flourishing schools, and had 
taught the people many things, but the horrible tempta- 
tions of heathenism were all about them, making the new 
life very hard to live. So Mr. Duncan resolved to take 
his Indians away from these surroundings and to found 
a Christian city. Those who wished to live in it were 
compelled to sign these fifteen rules : 

1. To give up their Indian deviltry. 

2. To cease calling in the medicine man when sick. 

3. To cease gambling. 

4. To cease giving away property for display. 

5. To cease painting their faces. 

6. To cease indulging in intoxicating drinks. 

7. To rest on the Sabbath. 

8. To attend religious instruction. 

9. To be cleanly. 

10. To send their children to school. 

11. To be industrious. 

12. To be peaceful. 

13. To be liberal and honest in trade. 

14. To build neat houses. 

15. To pay the village tax. 

The first five of these rules meant giving up all their 
heathen ways and customs, which they and the tribes to 
which they belonged had followed for hundreds of years. 
This was a fearfully hard thing to do, and only those 
who were very earnest followers of "The Word" were 
strong enough to sign. 

Fifty were found who were willing to sign and go with 
Mr. Duncan to the new home on the island of Met- 
lakahtla. 



86 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Some day perhaps a great artist will paint a picture 
of this setting out to found a new city — this turning from 
evil to seek the good — from a horror of darkness to the 
Light of the World. 

I wish we had such a picture of their setting out. It 
was in May, 1862. 

"In the afternoon," says Mr. Duncan, "we started off. 
All that were ready to go with me occupied six canoes, 
and we numbered about fifty, men, women and children. 
Many Indians were seated on the beach, watching our de- 
parture with solemn and anxious faces. Some promised 
to follow us in a few days." 

Mr. Duncan had selected the new home two years be- 
fore, and thus described it: 

"A narrow, placid channel, studded with little promon- 
tories and pretty islands, a rich verdure, a waving forest, 
backed by lofty but densely wooded mountains. A solemn 
stillness, broken only by the cries of happy birds flying 
over, or the more musical note of some little warbler near 
at hand." 

It was a small company that started away with Mr. 
Duncan that day in May, but not two weeks had passed 
when thirty canoes, carrying three hundred people, came 
dashing down the inlet. 

What a cheering sight to Mr. Duncan ! 

Now he was beginning to reap a harvest from his 
strenuous plowing and seed-sowing. 

The "solemn silence" of Metlakahtla was broken now. 
It was a busy place. Several industries were undertaken 
and Mr. Duncan paid wages to all the workers. This was 
very necessary, for as Christianity raised their standard 
of living, more money was needed to supply their wants 
than in the old heathen days. 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 87 

A salmon cannery was built and a co-operative store — 
the story of which is itself a most interesting tale. Then 
a saw mill run by water power was added, although one 
incredulous Indian declared that when he beheld water 
saw wood, he would be ready to die ! 

Work went busily on : streets were laid out ; gardens 
made and houses built. A church was built also, and 
when a bishop came from England to visit Metlakahtla, 
he found a large number of persons ready for baptism. 

Try to imagine the happy and busy life at Metlakahtla, 
so different from the sad and wretched lives at Fort 
Simpson. 

The poor children in those days never laughed — they 
did not know what happiness or fun was — they never 
even smiled ! 

But now ! if you could have seen those smiling children 
in school, learning from their kind and pleasant teacher 
to read and write and to be happy and good, and, when 
school was out, learning from him how to play! 

And it was a wonderfully good thing that Mr. Duncan 
understood music and could sing: he taught his Metla- 
kahtlans, whose voices in singing were rarely sweet and 
true and strong. You should have heard the singing of 
the church choir ; it was simply beautiful. 

It was wonderful, too, how Mr. Duncan educated these 
Indians, that is, how he led them out — their minds, their 
hearts, their consciences — and how he trained them to 
take responsibility. Soon after going to Metlakahtla he 
appointed constables whose signs of office were a cap, 
cape and belt ; it was a great honor to be chosen to this 
office. Later he organized a town Council, and elders 
for the church were elected. 



88 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH 



When Mr. Duncan had been with them thirteen years, 
he had such faith in his people that he entrusted every- 
thing to their keeping and went to England to be absent a 
year, his main object being to learn several trades, so 
that on his return he might teach his people and give them 
these additional ways by which to earn their living. In 
his notebook was a memorandum as to the different 
trades and occupations he intended to investigate and 
study. We copy it from the life-story of Mr. Duncan 
called "The Apostle of Alaska." 



Cleaning 

Teasing 

Carding 

Dyeing 

Drying 

Spinning 



Weaving Dressing deerskins 

Making soap Making bricks 
wool " brushes " tiles 
" baskets staves 

" rope Gardening 

" clogs Photography 



The voyage to England and back required so much time 
that Mr. Duncan would have only six months or so to 
learn all these things. 

But he learned them! and had besides, entered in his 
memorandum book, extensive notes of every trade and 
everything connected with it. 

He learned photography, and took back with him to 
Metlakahtla apparatus, plates and chemicals. 

He was the first photographer on the Northwest coast. 

It was an interesting sight — the unloading of his va- 
ried freight, when he got back to Metlakahtla, just a few 
days more than a year after leaving. 

And then there were busy days putting up buildings for 
all these new industries, and learning new trades and oc- 
cupations. 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 89 

Few things escaped Mr. Duncan's quick eyes and keen 
perceptions. He had noticed that the Indians, though 
they had no instruments except a primitive drum and the 
rattle which the medicine men used, were great singers, 
had fine voices, as I have said, and good ears for time and 
sound. 

So he made up his mind before he went to England 
to bring back with him instruments for a brass band — and 
he did — thirty pieces, and while waiting for a steamer at 
Victoria he took lessons of a very fine music teacher — 
eleven lessons for which he paid $11.00, and in those 
eleven lessons he learned the gamut of all the thirty 
pieces ! 

On this trip he also brought an organ for the church. 

The next thing was to call some of the young men to- 
gether. He showed them how to use the instruments, and 
sent them out into the forest to practice. 

After a while, he succeeded in teaching them to play, 
"God save the Queen." This, remember, was in 1871. 

Later, a German machinist, who was quite a musician, 
came to Metlakahtla from Victoria. He gave the young 
men lessons for three months, all the rest they taught 
themselves, and in the course of time Mr. Duncan had 
reason, indeed, to be proud of his Metlakahtla Brass 
Band! 

So this wonderful work went on, "The Torch," or, as 
the Indians called it, "God's Letter," lighting up the life 
of body, mind and soul of all who received its message. 
The Christian spirit in the village, the love and faith un- 
feigned of his people, were a joy to Mr. Duncan. 

As to the Indians — no words could measure their love 
for their teacher and pastor and friend. 



90 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

Here are some words Mr. Duncan has written about 
the change that had taken place since he first came among 
the people in 1857 : 

"Then they were all superstitiously afraid of me, and 
regarded with dread suspicion my every act. It was with 
feelings of fear and contempt they approached me to hear 
God's Word, and, when I prayed among them, I prayed 
alone. None understood. None responded. Now, how 
things have changed ! Love has taken the place of fear, 
and light the place of darkness, and hundreds are intelli- 
gently able and devoutly willing, to join in prayer and 
praise to Almighty God. 

"To God be all the praise and glory." 

When after some years, Mr. Duncan resigned his work 
at Metlakahtla, his Indians asked him to make a new 
Metlakahtla, to which they would follow him. 

In some ways this is to us the most interesting part of 
the whole story, for, by permission of the United States, 
Mr. Duncan chose a site for the new city within our 
boundaries, and in 1887 his Indians once more fared forth 
from their homes, and this time, like the Pilgrim Fathers, 
they sought "freedom to Worship God." 

And they have found it on Annette Island, the site 
selected by themselves, one of the loveliest spots in all 
Alaska. Some pioneers were at once sent up there to 
build temporary huts near the beach, while the rest of the 
villagers went on their usual summer tours to gather and 
put up supplies of food for the winter. 

At the end of July the canoes returned, and their occu- 
pants went at once to their new home to assist in putting 
up temporary houses. 

It was a tremendous moment for the New Metlakahtla 
when about noon on August 7, 1887, a gun announced 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 91 

the arrival of the steamer Ancon, for the steamer brought 
to them their beloved leader and teacher, who landed at 
once. 

Here is the thrilling moment, as we look at it. 

A flag pole was set up, and while cannon boomed far 
out over the water the stars and stripes were hoisted for 
the first time over Annette Island and the Metlakahtla 
that was to be. 

The beautiful silk flag was presented to the Met- 
lakahtlans by friends in the United States. 

In order that you may see in your minds how beautiful 
our colors looked that day, I must tell you a little bit 
about the surroundings. 

The new village is on the north side of Annette Island. 
The gently rising land just back of the fine beach and 
beautiful harbor, the mountain background, the splendid 
growth of cedars, spruce and hemlock, the gorgeous wild 
flowers, all made a scene of exquisite beauty, and in the 
midst of all, against the soft gray blue of the Alaskan sky, 
floated the beautiful flag of America. 

As the flag rose slowly above them the Indians un- 
covered their heads. "Since that day" we are told, "there 
are four great holidays celebrated at Metlakahtla every 
year: 

Christmas Day, the birthday of the Christ ; 
New Year's Day, the birthday of the year; 
Fourth of July, the birthday of the Nation, and 
August Seventh ("Pioneer Day," as it is called), 
the birthday of New Metlakahtla. 

At three o'clock divine services were held on the beach, 
conducted by Mr. Duncan. 

Soon after this the Governor of Alaska offered Mr. 
Duncan assistance in the educational part of his work, 



92 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

allowing him $1,200 a year. Six years later a rule was 
made that the Bible should not be taught in any school in 
Alaska receiving aid from the government. 

When Mr. Duncan heard of this rule, what do you 
think the great "Torch Bearer" said? I think you can 
almost guess it. He said: 

"The Bible will not be exiled from any school that I 
have anything to do with," and he immediately refused 
to receive another dollar of government money. 

I should like to tell you of the printing press set up at 
New Metlakahtla, one of the Indians having been first 
sent to Portland to learn printing; of the baseball and 
football clubs — the various musical bands and the orches- 
tra ; oh, many, many things — most of all, to describe the 
wonderful church built by the natives — the inlaying and 
carving. The whole creed of this church is found on the 
beautifully inlaid pulpit on the ribbon held in the bill of a 
dove — "God is love" — and in the glad gospel message sur- 
mounting its preaching platform, "The angel said unto 
them : 'Fear not, for behold I bring good tidings of great 
joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this 
day in the city of David, a Saviour who is Christ our 
Lord.' " It is a beautiful church having a fine pipe organ 
— the only thing except the gas fixtures that was not made 
by the Indians themselves. 

Even more, I should like to tell you about the simple 
and beautiful services held in the church, especially the 
morning service on New Year's Day, when the little 
children born in the preceding year are "brought to Jesus 
to be blessed." 

You must read of these things for yourselves, in that 
great book, "The Apostle of Alaska." 

I must, though, take space to ask you to think of a con- 
trast : 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH TO CANNIBALS 93 

First — that description of the cannibals of the North- 
west, which led Mr. Duncan to speed to them with The 
Torch and its message, and 

Second — the fiftieth anniversary of The Torch Bearer's 
going to their rescue when a choir of his Metlakahtlans — 
forty rich and beautiful voices — sang and sang exceed- 
ingly well, the oratorio of The Messiah, led by Edward 
Marsden with another of Mr. Duncan's boys at the organ. 

And it is with the Hallelujah Chorus that we close our 
story of the grand old Bearer of the Torch to Cannibals. 



VI 

A BEARER OF THE TORCH IN THE WEST 



"When the future historian writes the religious annals 
of this backbone of our continent (the Rocky Mountains) 
he will give the foremost place to Sheldon Jackson, the 
pioneer of the forces of good." 

"Our brave missionaries are making history for us. 
They are the pioneers of civilization, and if what they 
have done be not recognized now, it will be hereafter. 
When we are all dead and gone, and our 'Western Archi- 
pelago* is no longer a wilderness ; when church spires rise 
out of primeval forests, and the sound of the church- 
going bell is heard over these woods and waters ; then will 
the historians of that day seek among the graves of the 
fathers to whom Alaska owes its schools and churches, 
and no name will be held in more grateful remembrance 
than that of Sheldon Jackson." 



VI 

A BEARER OF THE TORCH IN THE WEST 

AFTER all, although the preceding chapters might 
lead you to think so, it is not absolutely necessary 
for a boy to be a sweet singer in order to do a 
splendid work for the betterment of the world. The hero 
of this chapter proves that ! and never in our story have 
Roderick Dhu's words to his henchman as he put in his 
hand the Cross : 

"The muster place is Lanrick mead — 
Instant the time. Speed, clansman, speed !" 

been so appropriate as in the time to which we have now 
come. 

Only we must understand by "Lanrick mead" our 
great West, which was becoming in the years of which 
we now write, the "muster place" of the powers of evil. 
And it was the great object of the Bearer of The Torch 
to the West, to get there first with the forces of good; 
so the second line of our quotation is quite correct if we 
say: 

Instant the time — Speed, Jackson, speed! — 

and even more speed is required to tell the story in the 
space allowed by this book, for Sheldon Jackson did a 
prodigious number of things and an enormous amount of 
work. 

97 



yo BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

His adventures, as exciting often as those of Kit 
Carson or Buffalo Bill, if half described, would fill 
volumes, for his preventive work, as nowadays it might 
be called, began in 1859 and continued for more than 
twenty years; you boys and girls do not need to be told 
that those were the palmy days of the Overland Mail, 
the Pony Express, and Indians; of fording rivers, of 
losing one's bearings in bewildering and freezing bliz- 
zards with the cry of howling wolves making itself heard 
above the roaring of the winds. 

Sheldon Jackson began his work in Minnesota. Some- 
one has said of him, "He kept on beginning." That 
was his life work. Some years later he began among 
the Rocky Mountains. Then he went to Alaska and kept 
on beginning. He might be called "The Beginner/' that 
is, he saw the possibility for some noble work of preven- 
tion before anyone else saw it, and straightway started 
a work which often less energetic and far-seeing men 
could carry on once it was set going. 

Here is something else that was said about him in those 
days of danger and excitement, when Dr. Jackson had 
reached Denver after a long trip in the mountains: 

"The most remarkable pioneer of missionary work 
here is that heroic Kit Carson of Home Missions, Shel- 
don Jackson. The brave little man* appeared on Satur- 
day, just in from a tramp over the snow mountains, carry- 
ing his own blanket and provisions. He has been among 
the miners of the San Juan region, and is prospecting 
for mission stations in Arizona and New Mexico. He 



*Dr. Jackson was very short in stature, as is Mr. Duncan 
of Metlakahtla, but they are both giants "by inside measure- 
ment"; it does not follow that just because a boy is short, he 
will automatically become a splendid missionary, like Jack- 
son, Duncan or — the Apostle Paul. 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH IN THE WEST 99 

will soon start for Idaho and Oregon. Dr. Jackson is 
worth more to Colorado than any one of the richest gold 
or silver mines." 

Let me tell you of one Kit-Carson-like adventure. 
This is the way it happened : 

Once when making a long winter trip Dr. Jackson was 
delayed for thirty-six hours by snowdrifts; later he 
learned that a stage coach would pass about a mile and a 
half from his camping place, a lonely spot even in day- 
light. The stage was due about midnight. 

In order to keep an appointment, it was necessary to 
get passage on the stage, and this dark and lonely place 
on the road was between stations. So our missionary 
about midnight took his stand by the roadside, and 
waited, and when the stage came along he signalled the 
driver to stop. Now here is the Kit Carson part. The 
instant the driver drew up his horses a half-dozen re- 
volvers were thrust out from the stage, covering our 
missionary at close range. He could hear the click of 
the hammers — there was but the trembling of a finger 
between him and instant death! Well, under the cir- 
cumstances Dr. Jackson immediately surrendered, and 
in a few moments, after things had been explained, he 
was cordially invited to become a passenger inside the 
coach ! 

You see the situation was this : inside the coach were 
a sheriff and his posse who had captured a famous des- 
perado, and were taking him to the county seat to be 
tried. The sheriff had received word that at some point 
on the trip an attempt would be made to hold up the stage 
and rescue the prisoner. When Dr. Jackson appeared 
in the road at this lonely spot, the guards on the alert in 
the stage thought he was the leader of an ambushed band 
of brigands, and without a second's loss of time were 



100 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

about to shoot, when our missionary threw up his hands ; 
incidentally, he later met his appointment! (I think I 
have heard that Sheldon Jackson never missed an ap- 
pointment, though blizzards raged, or drifts piled high.) 

"It was not an unusual thing for Dr. Jackson to be 
fired upon by Indians. This happened at least once upon 
a steamboat trip of 2,000 miles from Fort Benton at the 
head of navigation on the Missouri River to Sioux City, 
Iowa, a wild ride of ten days, when the boat was twice 
on fire. In those days the steamboats did not always 
have the right of way, and on this journey the party was 
delayed some time by a large herd of buffalo which chose 
just that time to swim across the river. The river for a 
great part of its course ran through a wilderness region, 
abounding in game of all sorts, and through it roamed 
thousands of Indians,, according to their own pleasure. 
Occasionally there were clearings — very far apart — occu- 
pied by United States forts, or stockade trading posts. 
Very often large bands of Indians whose camps were 
near by, flocked to the river's bank to see the boat pass. 
One of these bands fired on the boat, causing great dodg- 
ing and scattering among the passengers." 

In those years, and especially after the Union Pacific 
Railroad across the country was completed, settlers sim- 
ply poured into the West, and towns and villages sprang 
up everywhere. Liquor saloons and dance halls appeared 
almost before there were streets or houses, but in a great 
many cases Dr. Jackson, having learned in advance that 
some site had been selected, made a quick run to the 
place, discovered among the settlers already there a few 
Christian people, and even before the "powers of evil" 
arrived the powers of good in the form of church and 
Sunday School had been installed by our missionary. 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH IN THE WEST 101 

You would be amazed if traveling to-day over the same 
country to find how the beginnings of many large and 
flourishing Sunday Schools and beautiful churches were 
made by Dr. Jackson in some small log building or per- 
haps in a tent. 

Our missionary preached from many a queer pulpit. 
At a certain mining camp in the Rocky mountains the 
question was asked, "Do you ever have preaching here ?" 
"Oh, yes," was the reply, "Sheldon Jackson was here 
last Sunday and we all met in this building (it was a 
house for crushing ore — the largest in the place), and 
he stood upon the engine and gave us a rousing sermon." 
That was the kind of man needed in those frontier settle- 
ments — men who could "stand on an engine" or anywhere 
else that gave a foothold, and preach the Glad Tidings; 
men willing to endure hardships, face any danger, take 
the chances and attempt what seemed impossible. 

Such a man was the Bearer of The Torch to the West, 
and well it is for our country that at a time when there 
were no churches nor schools in the far West, this "giant 
by inside measurement" devoted his life to the work of 
starting them. 

Such splendid energy and resolute endurance, and 
quick resource in danger — I cannot begin to tell all the 
danger — such industry, such tirelessness, such "keeping 
on, keeping on"! 

Yet said some one who knew him well : 

"Dr. Jackson never hurries — he just persists" 

Perhaps this chapter should be called "The Bearer of 
The Torch to the North" for Dr. Jackson did also a 
great work for Alaska, and the beginning of it is a won- 
derful story. 

Every chapter in this book has, I think, something to 
do with that story. 



102 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

First, of course, there was Martin Luther, who freed 
the minds and hearts of men from bondage, by giving 
them the Word of God. 

Then there was John Wesley, who gave back to Great 
Britain the knowledge of this Word, and formed a great 
church, which should ever live by its precepts, and espe- 
cially by the great command, Go ye into all the world 
and teach; and you, I am sure, have not forgotten White- 
field, whose influence persists in the Home Mission 
Boards of America. 

We think, too, of the little maid of Wales, crying her 
heart out, and remember that her bitter tears of dis- 
appointment led to the making of enough Bibles for the 
whole world. 

And that pretty bride of the blossoms in the Virginia 
orchard — I hope you remember her, for, presently, you 
will meet her again ! 

William Duncan's decision that if the Lord wanted 
him to he would be a bearer of the Glad Tidings to the 
heathen has much to do with the story, so has Clah, the 
Indian interpreter, who helped Mr. Duncan to learn the 
Tsimshean language, and "the Kit Carson of Home, Mis- 
sions" has perhaps even more. 

So, there you are ! all the separate threads twisted into 
a strong cable of love, as you will see. 

Is it not true that it is a wonderful story? Reaching 
back for four hundred years, and forward — Well, we 
cannot look into the ages to come, yet we know this 
story of faith and love can never end. 

But the telling of it must come to an end very soon! 
So I hasten on to say all I can before the curtain falls on 
the scene. 

Some years after Mr. Duncan went to Fort Simpson, 
a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church stationed 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH IN THE WEST 103 

at Victoria, Vancouver Island, held there some special 
services for Indians. These meetings aroused great inter- 
est, and news of them gradually reached tribes living far 
back in the interior of British Columbia. Many of these 
Indians made the long and toilsome journey to Victoria, 
and among them was a chief who had come all the way 
from Fort Simpson, a distance of 600 miles. When the 
meetings were over the Indians returned to their far-off 
homes, passing on to their neighbors the Good Tidings 
they had heard. 

Now, indeed "The Torch" was quickly passed from 
hand to hand. 

When the Fort Simpson Chief reached home he and 
his wife started a school to teach others what they had 
learned. 

One who went to the school was Clah, Mr. Duncan's 
teacher and preserver — for at least once, when in another 
moment Mr. Duncan would have been killed by a chief 
who was angry with him for trying to stop their wicked 
customs, Clah saved his life. 

In the spring of 1876 Clah and seven others crossed the 
border into Alaska, looking for work. At Fort Wrangell 
they secured a government contract to cut wood. 

When Sunday came, to the great amazement of the 
officers and men at the post, these Indians refused to 
work, but instead met together to worship God, to help 
one another to keep the faith, and to tell to the Alaskans 
around them as well as they could the new way of Life. 

When their contract expired all but two of the wood 
cutters returned home, Clah and one other remaining. 

Clah, aided by this associate, now gave his whole time 
to Christian work, holding religious services among the 
natives in the neighborhood of Fort Wrangell. Soon he 
opened a school for them and ninety persons, mostly 



104 BEARERS OF THE TORCH 

grown people, came to it. Day after day Clah — his Chris- 
tian name was Phillip — himself knowing not more than 
an American schoolboy of nine years, taught them, using 
all the knowledge he had and daily praying for more. 

Do you think any one of our noble Bearers of The 
Torch did more than this? 

And so were the Glad Tidings first made known in 
Alaska. 

A soldier in the post watched all this with the deep- 
est interest and compassion, and at length wrote a letter 
to General Howard asking him to arrange for a Chris- 
tian teacher to. be sent to Alaska from the States. 

You would hardly believe how little Christian people 
seemed to care for the poor Alaskans ; it was actually ten 
years after Alaska had been purchased from Russia be- 
fore missionary work was started there. 

And how do you suppose it came about ? 

Well, the soldier's letter at length came into the hands 
of Dr. Jackson, and one might be sure then that some- 
thing would be done, and it was. 

And here Mrs. McFarland comes into the story. Her 
husband's health failed in New Mexico ; hoping he might 
be better in another climate, they had gone to work 
among the Nez Perce Indians in Idaho ; but about a year 
before this he died and Mrs. McFarland went to Port- 
land, Oregon, hoping soon to be busy again. 

One day along came Dr. Jackson and asked her if she 
would go to Alaska, and if she could be ready to start 
in five days ! 

Mrs. McFarland said she would, and could. She did, 
too, and with Dr. Jackson's help started a school for the 
Alaskans at Fort Wrangell, and afterwards a Home 
for Girls, and Phillip McKay— that is, Clah— put his 
school in her hands, becoming himself a scholar — and 



A BEARER OF THE TORCH IN THE WEST 105 

this was the beginning of all missionary work in Alaska. 

Dr. Jackson returned east and aroused the interest 
of Christians in the churches, and henceforth his great 
energy and powers were devoted to establishing schools 
where the Alaskans were taught to be Christians, and 
in many ways working for their good. 

"The schoolhouse nearest the North Pole," "the 
schoolhouse farthest West," and many others were 
planned and started by him. 

Every year for a long time Dr. Jackson sailed on the 
United States Revenue Cutter "Bear" on its annual trip 
to Point Barrow, landing at many points to leave sup- 
plies for the missionaries who could obtain no more until 
the "Bear" and Dr. Jackson came again the next sum- 
mer — and not always then, for it happened some years 
that the surf was too tremendous to admit of landing, 
and once the "Bear" was caught in an ice-pack. 

Traveling by dog-train, was the only way to get about 
from one interior station to another, and many a trip 
did our missionary take by this means, clad all in fur 
from his head to his feet. 

When some day you go to Alaska you will find re- 
minders of Dr. Jackson at every turn — in churches and 
schools and in the museum at Sitka, where are collected 
all manner of things showing the former heathen life of 
the Alaskans; and at many points you will — if you ad- 
mire and love this "giant by inside measurement" as you 
must — glory in the great herds of reindeer which now 
more than justify this far-seeing man's plans for the 
future welfare and comfort of the people of Alaska. 

Food and clothes and shelter, transportation and occu- 
pation, enlightenment of mind and heart, training of 
hand, and the hope of the Gospel — all these and more, the 
Alaskans owe to this great-hearted Bearer of The Torch. 



AT THE FINISH. 



Who is on the Lord's side? 

Who will serve the King? 
Who will be His helpers 

Other lives to bring? 
Who will leave the world's side? 

Who will face the foe? 
Who is on the Lord's side? 

Who for Him will go? 
By Thy call of mercy, 

By Thy grace divine, 
We are on the Lord's side, 

Saviour, we are Thine. 

Not for weight of glory, 

Not for crown and palm, 
Enter we the army, 

Raise the warrior psalm; 
But for love that claimeth 

Lives for whom He died; 
He whom Jesus nameth 

Must be on His side. 
By Thy love constraining, 

By Thy grace divine, 
We are on the Lord's side, 

Saviour, we are Thine. 



AT THE FINISH : 

A BUNCH OF BOYS AND GIRLS OF THE 

TWENTIETH CENTURY. 

STILL there must be Bearers of The Torch, for the 
Word of God has not been carried to all the world 
— not even to all America. 

Whole tribes of Indians have never been told of Jesus 
Christ; there are great regions in Alaska where yet no 
missionary has gone, bearing "God's Letter." 

Think, too, of Cuba and Porto Rico, which, in all the 
four hundred years since the Word of God sounded forth 
from Martin Luther, have not been allowed to hear the 
Bible preached, much less to possess it, except as in 
recent years The Torch has been borne thither by our 
missionaries. 

There are our southern mountains where The Torch 
burns dimly and must be rekindled; there is all our 
great Southland with its millions of Negroes, many of 
whom still need to be told the Glad Tidings and taught 
to live Christian lives. 

There are immigrants coming to us from all the lands 
of the earth. Many of them, oh, how many ! have never 
held in their hands nor their hearts the wonderful words 
of life. 

All of these still in darkness — who will be Bearers of 
The Torch to them ? 

109 



110 



BEARERS OF THE TORCH 



Not long ago there was in a certain great city of 
America a "bunch" of boys and — for this is the twen- 
tieth century, not the fifteenth — girls, excitedly watching 
a game of football. 

Among them were some, as in the fifteenth century-, 
who are to do a great work for God and man, for the 
betterment and happiness of the world. 

How do I know? 

It must be so, for the need of the world is great, and 
much heroic work must be done to meet it. There will be 
no one to do it, but you w T ho are now boys and girls. 

Surely there are some among you gloriously qualified 
boys and girls of the twentieth century, who will seize 
The Torch from hands that have nobly borne it and speed 
with it — on, on — until the Word of God shall have run 
and been glorified in all our America ! 

Surely, surely, from some of you, as from Martin 
Luther, shall sound forth the Word? 

In a few years fair Opportunity will appear, and then 
some of you boys and girls, through high school, through 
college, splendidly equipped for life's work, will make up 
your minds, as did young Duncan on that stormy night, 
to put the fire of your youth and the strength of your 
full manhood and womanhood, into the heroic and noble 
work for God, that needs to be done and waits for you 
to do it. 

And you will be, some of you — 

Bearers of the Torch 



Preservaf.onWlog.es 



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